


Reconciliation

by FireflysWriting



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol, Asexual Character, Dan is a Douche, Ella Lopez Finds Out, Family, Found Family, Gen, God's A+ Parenting, I took what I got from the trailer and ran with it, Identical Twins, Impersonation, Mention of theoretical non-con, Mentions of Sex, Not Beta Read, POV Ella Lopez, Panic Attacks, Reveal Fic, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 05 Speculation, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, i wrote this instead of working, look i just really want them to be okay, more like wishful thinking really, no happy ending for dan sorry, what the hell was my brain thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflysWriting/pseuds/FireflysWriting
Summary: “As far as I’m concerned, Lucifer can, well, he can go to hell.”Lucifer disappeared, again, and this time apparently he wasn’t coming back. Confronted with the reality that Ella had been abandoned by a friend all over again, there was not much left to do than try and put the pieces back together, for her and the others.Then he was back, but things only got more weird from there.
Relationships: Amenadiel/Linda Martin/Mazikeen (Lucifer TV), Ella Lopez & Candy Fletcher, Ella Lopez & Charlie Martin, Ella Lopez & Linda Martin, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar, Ella Lopez & Mazikeen, Ella Lopez & Michael, Michael & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Trixie Espinoza & Ella Lopez
Comments: 20
Kudos: 139





	Reconciliation

**Author's Note:**

> Me around the 4k mark: Ah yes, about halfway done.
> 
> I just need Ella and Lucifer to be okay.
> 
> This started out with one person having abandonment issues and in the end everyone ended up with it. For a time I really felt like a street vendor yelling ‘Abandonment issues, fresh abandonment issues! Get them while they’re hot!’ and every single character decided to go ‘Great, imma go do that.’
> 
> Thing is, I've always been a fan of the Michael and Lucifer are identical things. Just like I've always hated impersonation/evil twin stories. Obviously we can't tell from a trailer where exactly they'll be going with this, but let's just say I don't have any high hopes. So I simply decided to take matters into my own hands.
> 
> Also how the fuck does one series manage to give me this much second hand embarrassment. This gotta be a world record.
> 
> Anyway enjoy this monstrosity I have spent over two weeks writing and then was so behind on uni work that i had no time to edit it until now :D

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Ella asked concerned, hunched over their latest corpse, looking up at Chloe, now thoroughly distracted.

Lucifer hadn’t shown up to work, and after the crazy weekend she’d had, she had been looking forward to telling him everything about it.

“I mean he had to go home to take care of some... family business. He- he left two days ago,” she answered.

“Okayyyy…” she replied, confused. That didn’t sound quite right. “When’s he coming back?”

Chloe breathed heavily. “He’s- he’s not going to,” she swallowed, “come back.” The last part was croaked.

“What do you mean ‘he’s not coming back’?” she asked sharply.

Chloe just shook her head. And left.

“What.”

That couldn’t be right. Everyone knew he hated his family, why would he ever go back there, never mind not come back once he was gone? But there was no discernible reason for Chloe to lie about it either.

Ella wished that the only emotion she felt right now was confusion. None of this made any sense. But, as much as she wanted to ignore it, under it all, there was a quiet, nagging sense of dread. That Lucifer really was gone.

* * *

In the end she still had work to do. But as soon as she was back in her lab, where she was supposed to work at the blood analysis, her thoughts continuously drifted back to her friend. She went through the motions of putting the blood into the machine on autopilot, but that was about the extent of work she managed to get done. In the end she was just too distracted.  
To alleviate at least some of her anxiety, she sent him a quick text, just asking him to call her when he can. The message was marked as sent but it apparently had trouble being put through to Lucifer’s phone. No matter, maybe he just had no reception right now. She was sure he’d see it at some point in the next few hours. Or days. Because there was no way he would just leave without saying anything. Right?

That didn’t stop her from obsessively checking for a response every few minutes though.

* * *

So yeah, she got worried. When there was still no response two days later, she tried calling but that only told her that his cell was out of reach. Her frequent tries over the course of the next few days always yielded the same result.

Then Maze came by the precinct. It was _the_ opportunity to ask her about the whereabouts of her former boss.

To be quite honest, Ella was scared of the answer she’d get. Whatever Maze would tell her, that would be it and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to accept whatever _it_ was. She loved Chloe, no doubt about that, but yeah, she wasn’t quite the best source of information when it came to Lucifer news. Heh, Ella grinned, such a good detective, but when it came to him she never could put one foot before the other.

Still, almost a week of no information was enough to wear her down and in the end, she reasoned with herself, it was better to have a definite answer than no answer at all.

“Yo, Maze!”

“Ella,” she grinned. But even the bounty hunter seemed more haggard than usual.

Well, no time like the present. “Can you tell me where Lucifer is? He won’t answer any of my calls.”

Maze looked at her surprised. “You don’t know? I thought Decker told you.”

“Chloe’s answer didn’t make much sense.” She waved it away. “So, where is he?”

Her gaze went stony. “Hell, Lopez. He went back to hell. Without me, without saying anything and you better believe I am pissed at being left behind AGAIN!” she practically screamed at no one in particular. “So yeah. He left, he’s not coming back and now we have to pick up the pieces of the mess he made. As always.”

She stalked off after that and Ella had enough presence of mind to feel sorry for whoever crossed her path next.

After Maze had left, there was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on work anymore. Thankfully there wasn’t really much for her to do that day, otherwise her absent-mindedness would surely not have gone unnoticed.

Lucifer would have noticed. He would have sat here and listened to her rant about her problems and then he might have gone and dealt with it in his own way if she didn’t discourage him from doing so. But he wasn’t here and that was very much the crux of her current problems. 

At least the weekend was fast approaching, and she left work the first chance she got.

* * *

So sue her for getting drunk that night. She deserved it.

Combining Chloe’s stammer and Maze’s outburst there were two conclusions to come to. First, Lucifer left, again. Second, this time he was not coming back.

And because she tended to make bad decisions when drunk, she decided to preemptively take some countermeasures, which now left her sprawled across Linda’s couch, staring blankly at the ceiling fan that, for whatever reason, was wrapped in bubble wrap.

“How can he not come back though? He’s got his life here.”

She felt kinda bad for just dumping herself at Linda’s when her friend had a few weeks old infant to look after, but she had to admit to herself that in the end she didn’t have that many friends. Especially ones that lived close to her. One less now, apparently.

“It’s not like he wanted to leave,” Linda tried to explain.

Ella tried to understand that, she really did. In some capacity she did understand. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. 

“He didn’t say anything. He just… left.” 

And sometimes emotions weren’t rational responses.

Heh, ‘sometimes’. She almost started laughing.

“He didn’t tell anyone anything,” Linda said gently. “The only one who knew was Chloe and to be honest from what I got out of her, I’m not even sure he intended for her to find out.”

So he abandoned everyone. Not sure if that was any better.

* * *

Later that night, when she was lying in her bed alone, she couldn’t sleep. She had hoped that her not inconsiderate amount of alcohol intake would help that process along, but no such luck. Her thoughts always drifted back to the one she would rather not dwell on.

Lucifer had been one of the most important people in her life and he apparently hadn’t even given them the consideration of a goodbye. That he could just _leave_ , abandon his entire life here and not even look back. She had thought they had _meant_ something to him, but apparently that entire thing had been one big joke.

It had been a long time since people she had considered friends had abandoned her last, and she had thought she’d gotten over the hurt, but apparently there are some things that never quite leave you. And now it happened again and she couldn’t help but bring those memories back up.

She had been about fourteen-ish, and her two best friends back then turned on her so fast she still wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One day they were having a prime time, the next they were sneering at her about how she was sick and crazy for having an imaginary ghost friend. It took a long time for her to recover from that.

After that, she had had so much trouble making new friends. Bringing up the energy to try in the first place was hard enough, and every time she got close to someone her fear of being ridiculed and rejected had her pull away again. It took her until College to actually try and give it an actual shot again, but by then she had been so out of practice that _making_ friends was not part of her skillset anymore. So, College had been hell, uni had been hell, her first job was even worse because seriously, how had she been the only woman in the entire precinct?

She was glad that she had her online associates/friends, who were a lot less judgy than any of the people she had met in non-digital spaces. They had helped her through some tough times. Too bad they lived all over the place.

When she’d moved to LA, she’d promised herself to make a real effort this time, to not only have superficial friendly acquaintances that she didn’t dare let any closer than that, but to make some actual friends. 

Chloe had been her first ‘victim’ because honestly she’d seemed like she could use it. And maybe siding with the precinct’s shunned right from the beginning hadn’t been the wisest decision but hey, it had worked out. And well, Chloe had been the bridge to everyone else she now considered actual friends.

Lucifer had been unexpected though. He and Chloe had been inseparable at that point, so associating with the detective automatically meant Lucifer was part of the package. Her first impression of crazy rich boy in search of a little adventure in his life had been thrown out of the window basically almost immediately as he turned out to be a great partner to Chloe. And maybe her initial diagnosis of method actor didn’t hold quite that much up to scrutiny anymore after almost three years of her knowing him and him never breaking character, but there was one thing she still was sure of: When she had met him, he had reminded her so much of herself. Basically alone except for Chloe and terrified of commitment with no idea on how to make friends. This had been someone who had been rejected before and was not keen on repeating that experience, so instead he kept his distance.

So yeah, she felt him. And with time, they had built something. And she had thought it had meant something to him too

And then he’d left. And all she could think about now was how her worst fears that she had tried so long to put behind her had become real and she had been abandoned again. And logically she knew that he’d left everyone behind, but logic had never worked well with emotions. He’d been her friend and he’d abandoned her. And now she was crying in bed and it was so, so similar to what she’d gone through once before, what she’d hoped she’d never have to relive ever again. She’d trusted him to never do that to her, not after all this time and then he did it anyway.

Back in her teen years she’d dived into catholicism to cope. The entire ‘God will always accept you and be there for you’ thing had been what she’d so desperately needed. Sure, the church had always been part of her life, courtesy of growing up in a deeply catholic household, but that was the time she finally understood it for herself.

She doesn’t think she’s gonna have that luxury this time, not with how she’s been let down by her faith over the last year. 

She laughed quietly before more tears ran down her face onto her pillow. Trusting the devil with her heart, what a monumentally bad decision that had turned out to be.

How dare he. How dare he break her again. How dare he take that hard-won peace from her. Does he think about what he’d done to her or was she not even important enough for him to spare her a single thought?

And through her grief, through all the pain and sadness she was angry. And years of self reflection and learning to deal with her emotions made her aware enough to recognize it as a defense mechanism, but she was too drained to care and too hollow to stop it. Anger was good. Anger helped protect her. And right now that emotional protection was exactly what she needed.

* * *

Maze had started following Chloe to her crime scenes, seemingly intent on taking Lucifer’s place for whatever reason. That had been going on for at least two weeks, as far as Ella was aware. Well, if she wanted to. She certainly wasn’t going to try and stop her.

As long as they weren't gonna start talking about _him_.

“Maze, stop. This is a crime scene!”

She laughed silently. Though maybe some things don’t change.

“Why are you so worried about this?” Maze retorted. “A scumbag is dead. Why are you so intent on finding the killer?”

And others really do.

Ella saw she barely restrained herself from kicking the corpse. She appreciated it, even though, yes, their victim this time really did deserve it.

“Because it’s my job, Maze.”

She snorted. “For someone this perceptive you’re woefully naive sometimes, you know? The guy deserved it. Honestly, whoever killed him did this planet a favor. That’s not something you should be too hung up on. I understand why Lucifer had been so interested in this gig, but sometimes it’s just not worth it.”

Before Chloe could respond, Ella interrupted. “Okay, no, no talking about him at my crime scene.”

When the others gave her a look, she felt the need to defend herself. “He left, he’s gone and he’s not coming back. No need to dwell on it.” She sighed. “At least you got to say goodbye. As far as I’m concerned, Lucifer can, well, he can go to Hell.”

She didn’t wait for the other’s reaction and focussed back on the corpse in front of her.

Two years ago she would have been appalled by her choice of words. When she still believed, Hell was not something she would have wished on anybody. But since then her faith had taken a hard blow and from the confident believer was not much left. Only empty words towards a corrupt institution.

Somehow she kept ending up with those. Maybe it was her lot in life.

* * *

Later in her lab, Maze of all people confronted her about her outburst.

“You know, anger is the one emotion I actually really get. And believe me, I am angry. You're not the only one he’s left behind. But…,” she sighed. “As Linda would say, anger is mostly there to cover up hurt. So. You’re angry because you’re hurt.”

“Gee, not like I didn’t know that.”

“Hey, just trying to help here.” She grimaced. “Help.”

Ella deflated. “Yeah, I get it. Thanks for caring.”

Maze stuck out her tongue, apparently still not quite comfortable with having to talk about feelings. Ella appreciated her trying though.

“So! The reason I came here is to offer you to join Decker and me in our anger. You know, angry fucking can be quite cathartic.”

Ella pulled a face. “Thanks for the offer, but you know I’m ace, right?”

Maze’s face drew in confusion for a moment before lighting up. “Oh, you’re one of those people that aren’t even on the Kinsey scale. And here I thought you were just a hardcore lesbian.”

“Well yeah, I’m that too, but hatefucking is not something I’ll ever be interested in. Besides, I don’t want to come in between whatever it is you two are doing. Rebounding I’d guess. Chloe from Lucifer and you from… I don’t even know. Eve is obvious, but I’m guessing Linda, Amenadiel and Lucifer as well.”

Maze just gave her a death stare.

“Okay, okay, I get it! Not my place to pry. Different question, are you even open?”

“Yeah? I mean… Hold on, I gotta ask.”

And with that she had left the lab again. Ella was sure her shout of ‘Hey Decker!’ was heard across the entire bullpen. She smiled involuntarily. Leave it to Maze to inadvertently cheer her up.

Her short talk with the bounty hunter got her to think though. Ella had always been good at solving other people’s problems, one of the few social skills that had not really been impacted by her inability to make new friends. Granted, most of her problem solving had taken place in online spaces, but it definitely wasn’t a first. And it usually worked well. Well, except for the times it went in entirely the wrong direction. But that was not something that deserved to be thought about.

Lucifer’s disappearance was an Ella problem. It was not something she could deal with right now, even if it was also her friends’ problem. But Maze’s relationship issues? That was something she could meddle with.

Maze came back seconds later, declaring, “humans and their hang-ups. But no, we’re not exclusive. So, if you ever want to join us, the offer stands.”

“Invite me to getting drunk if you do that, but no thank you to the rest. Buuuut speaking of which, do you even know if Linda and Amenadiel are exclusive?”

Maze just gave her an even deadlier stare and turned to leave. “Maybe I’ll revoke my invitation after all.”

“Okay, fine,” she pulled back, and then shouted after her, “just think about it!”

* * *

Candy: _Hey, I’m having trouble getting in contact with Lucifer, do u know what’s up?_

Ella: _Lucifer’s gone._

Candy: _What do you mean gone?_

Ella: _I mean he left about 2 weeks ago without saying anything to anyome and hasnt shown up since_

_*anyone_

_Chloe says he had to take care of some family business and is not coming back, so_

_Do with that what you will_

Candy: _:/_

Ella: _Yeah_

* * *

She had been invited to Linda’s for an afternoon.

As soon as they had settled down on the living room couch, Linda cornered here with an interesting question: “So, are you the reason Maze has been making inquiries about Amenadiel’s and my sex life?” she asked.

Ella smirked into her coffee. “No comment.”

Linda laughed. “I see. Well, did you know Amenadiel and I aren’t even officially together? Talks of exclusivity haven’t even been had.”

Ella hummed at that and took an innocent glance at the ceiling. For some reason the fan was still bubble-wrapped. She decided not to ask.

It had been a while since she’d spent some time with Linda, the last time they saw each other in person was when she’d crashed on this exact couch while getting drunk. Maze had made good on her offer to invite her along to her and Chloe’s ‘getting drunk to forget about certain people’ parties, but Linda had a baby to look after and thus was in no position to come along.

So just spending some time with her was nice.

Amenadiel came back with Charlie not much later, the two having been on a small walk. At now two and a half months old, he was still simply adorable.

“Awh look at him!” she cooed at the child. “Who’s an adorable little baby? You are!”

Linda smiled at her tiredly. “That he is.”

“You know if you ever need a babysitter you can totes count on me. I’ve had my fair share of babysitting jobs over the years, it would be absolutely no problem.”

Linda shared a look with Amenadiel. “Thanks Ella, but we’re set for now. If at some point our usuals aren’t available you will be our first option though.”

“Sure, no prob. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

Linda nodded.

* * *

Usually Trixie was old enough to stay home alone for a few hours by now in the case that all sitters failed, but apparently she had insisted on coming along with her father today. Ella hadn’t even noticed she was at the precinct until she stood in the door to her lab, arms crossed in front of her defensively.

She put the fabric samples aside. “Heyy Trix, what are you doing here?” she smiled.

The girl shrugged.

“You wanna sit down?”

She shrugged again, but made her way to the unoccupied chair in the room.

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Not really,” she said quietly.

“That’s fine. You can stay here as long as you want, okay?”

The girl nodded and Ella had almost returned to her analysis work, when Trixie spoke up again. “It’s just that, I never see mommy anymore. She always goes away with Maze, so I don’t see her that often either and I have to stay with Daddy all the time and I really wanted to see her today but she isn’t even here but on some stupid case and Maze is with her AGAIN and I just…”

She was crying now. Honestly Ella felt like crying too, but she was the adult here and it was her job now to take care of Trixie first.

“C’mere Trix,” she said, opening her arms.

The girl ran into her embrace and Ella held her soothingly.

“It’s just that everyone keeps leaving and I don’t know why and I can’t make them stop!”

Her heart ached for the girl. She was only all too familiar with the feeling.

“Everything started to really go wrong when Lucifer just left.”

Ella tensed at the mention and immediately regretted it when Trixie ripped herself away.

“He just left and I can’t talk to ANYONE about it because talking about him is apparently bad or something!” She turned to run out, but Ella made to stop her. 

“Trix I’m sorry! Please, I promise you can talk to me about it.” She stopped. “Please. Let me help?”

The girl had come to her for help and her own issues had come in the way of that. She had never intended for that to happen. Apparently she wasn’t the only one in that regard and it pained her to see that it took an outburst towards a person Trix hadn’t even spent that much time with for anyone to notice the pain the girl was in.

Trixie slowly turned around again.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you feel like you couldn’t talk to me. I’m sorry that no one else lets you. I promise you can talk to me about it. About him.”

She sniffed. “You mean it?”

“I do.”

Trixie slowly walked back towards her and back into her arms.

“I know it’s not a good excuse, but we all miss him. And because we miss him we’re all angry he left without saying goodbye.”

“I was angry too,” the girl admitted. “But now I just miss him. Really badly.”

Ella sighed. That’s what it all boiled down to in the end. “Me too.”

“People keep acting as if he’s dead and now I’m spending so much time with daddy and he keeps saying it’s good he’s gone and that just makes me angry at him. I don’t want to be angry at him.”

Ella rubbed her back. “Oh Trix. He’s not dead.” Just out of our reach and apparently never coming back, she didn’t say. Totally not the same thing.

“Your dad and Lucifer had a difficult relationship, so he’s having a lot of complicated feelings. But he really shouldn’t let that out on you. Do you want me to talk to him about it?”

The girl nodded into her shoulder.

“Now or later?”

Trix held her tighter. “Later please? I don’t want to leave right now.”

“Okay,” Ella agreed. “How about we wait until your mom is back then?”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a bit, her newly acquired charge slowly but surely calming down again. 

A short while later Ella dared to breach the silence. “Do you have any homework?”

Trixie mumbled something.

“What was that?” Ella teased.

“My bag is at my daddy’s desk.”

Ella hummed. “How about I go get it for you?” She let go of the girl. Trixie climbed out of her embrace, not looking at her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Ella said lightly.

She made her way to Dan’s desk. The detective was deeply focused on his work, barely noticing anything around him.

“Hey Dan,” she started. 

He looked up.

“Trixie asked to do her homework in my lab, I’m just grabbing her things.”

“Okay, sure,” he said and went back to his work. Ella frowned. She knew he hadn't always been the best parent, but the picture painting itself today was really not a good one.

She decided to just get it over with. “Hey, can I talk to you later maybe? About something private?”

He looked up, surprised. “Oh, eh, sure?”

“Just tell me when you're done working, okay?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

That was something she was absolutely not looking forward to.

It was almost time for her to leave when Chloe and Maze came back from their field trip. Reading their expressions it seemed to have been an unsuccessful one.

She nudged Trixie with her shoe. “Hey Trix, your mom’s here.”

“Mmmmh,” was all she said, staring blankly at her phone screen. The girl had tired rather quickly after she’d been able to let everything out for once.

“I’m gonna call her over here, okay?”

“Hmmm,” was the only answer she got.

Ella made her way over to Chloe’s desk where she and Maze were discussing their next options.

She braced herself. "Hey, can I talk with you two for a minute?"

"Sure Ella, what's up?"

She fidgeted. "Let's go somewhere more private, maybe."

They claimed one of the conference rooms that were completely empty at this time of day.

Ella started pacing the room. "Look, there is no easy way to say this and I gotta be honest with you. Trix came to work with Dan today because she misses you. Said she barely sees either of you anymore and has been bottling up her feelings about Lucifer since everyone always brushes her off and Dan still actively hates him.”

She stopped and shook her head. “I'll confront him about it later, but seriously guys, staying with Dan all the time isn't doing her any good. I understand your feelings, I really do, heck I'm still angry myself, but Trix doesn't deserve that."

She looked at the other two. Chloe looked stricken and Maze ashamed. Neither found the words to say anything.

She sighed. "Just come on, she's waiting in my lab."

Trixie looked up when they entered. Ella went back to her work station to give them at least the illusion of privacy.

"Hey mom," she said, flatly.

Chloe spoke first. "Oh monkey, I'm so sorry I made you feel like you couldn't talk to me anymore. I was too caught up in my own hurt to notice you were hurting too and that should have never have happened. Can you forgive me?"

Trixie slowly slid from her chair and made her way over to her mother. She stood there for a minute before wrapping her arms around her mother's legs. "Okay."

Maze kneeled down next to her. "I never meant to abandon you. Again. The thing is, I can’t guarantee it won't happen again because I'm still so new to feelings and it is so easy to get lost in your own. But if it does happen again, tell me immediately and you have full permission to punch me in the face for it. That’s a promise.”

Trixie regarded her with suspicion and then socked her in the shoulder. Maze grinned. “Exactly.”

That got her to smile back.

Chle combed through her daughter’s hair. “Do you want me to ask your dad if you can come home with us today?”

Trixie nodded, taking her mother’s hand.

Before they could turn to go, Ella remembered something. “Hey Trix, do you have my number?”

The girl thought for a minute. “I don’t think so?”

“Want me to give it to you?”

“Sure.” She handed her her phone.

Ella quickly added herself as a contact. “Here, now you can call me or text me whenever you feel like it.”

She gave her a shy smile. “Thanks Miss Ella.”

“No prob!”

When they went to leave, Chloe looked back at her and mouthed a thank you. She gave two enthusiastic thumbs up as response.

Yeah. Other people’s problems. Only one part of this left to deal with.

Ella waited until Trixie had left with her mom and Maze before making her way back over to Dan. She would love to maybe never do this at all, but she had as good as promised. ‘Do it for her,’ she thought and grinned. It didn’t hold for long.

“Hey, sooo… can we maybe talk now?”

Dan didn’t look up. “Give me a minute, okay?”

Why had she agreed to do this? “Sure. Come by my lab once you’re free.”

Luckily, or maybe unluckily, she didn’t have to wait long.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Well, no going back now. “Look, Dan, usually I’m not one to meddle with other families’ problems, but I guess it becomes my problem when the go-to person for the distressed child is me. I’m not going to sugarcoat this now. You are a shit father.”

The surprise on Dan’s face at her blunt statement morphed into anger at record speed. ‘It was maybe not her best opener, but it immediately cut to the crux of the problem and Ella decidedly shut him down before he even had the chance to come up with a response.

“No, I know people aren’t used to me being this blunt, but I’ve had my fair share of problems with abandonment and I guess that’s why I can relate to Trixie so much right now. You have been paying so little attention to her that you didn’t even notice her distressedly running to me earlier and then didn’t notice anything amiss for the rest of the day.” 

She took a breath. “Now, I understand you and Lucifer had your issues, but she misses him like crazy and every time you bad-mouth him it just hurts her further. So maybe put your own issues aside for once to help your daughter through a huge loss in her life.”

“How dare you,” he answered, and suddenly Ella could envision perfectly what Chloe’s divorce must have looked like.

“How dare you presume you know anything about how I raise my daughter. You don’t even have any children, how would you even know how to raise them? How hard it is to care for them while trying to prepare them for the real life out there? I’m doing so much for her and she goes to complain because I don’t pay attention to her for five minutes?”

Wow, just wow. “First of all, you have no idea how many hours I spent raising children to pay for my tuition. Babysitting was about the only job I did during all those years before I started with the police so don’t you dare presume my life story. So yes, I know a thing or two about childcare. And secondly, five minutes? Yeah, those can be enough. Those five minutes can kill and you know that. But you know what, you haven’t just not been paying attention to her for five minutes, you haven’t been paying attention to her for over six years now from what I’ve heard.”

Her heart was almost beating out of her chest. And maybe she shouldn’t have started this in the middle of a basically empty precinct, but here they were now.

Dan luckily seemed to be at a loss for what to do. She sighed.

“Look, I didn’t want to start a fight. But maybe try to get your priorities straight, for Trixie’s sake at least.”

“Wow,” he said finally. “Yeah, I really don’t have to listen to this. We’re done here.” And then he walked out.

Oh, she really hated confrontations.

* * *

It was a few weeks after that, when Maze ripped the door to her lab open. “Lopez!” she shouted.

Ella startled and almost dropped the slide she was handling. She quickly put it down and turned to her friend.

“I’m never gonna complain about your meddling again!”

“What? Did- _oh. Oh!_ Well what did I say? I gotta say you three make the weirdest throuple but I am so happy for you. Charlie is gonna grow up with the best parents.”

She got up to smother Maze in one of her famous Ella hugs.

“Well, obviously,” she said, clearly only indulging Ella for her sake. Maze might never entirely understand the appeal of a hug, but she wasn’t giving up just yet. She got a lot better about it over the years and Ella appreciated it.

Maze slowly untangled herself and went back to the door. She paused at the threshold. “Hey. Thanks.”

Ella smiled. “What are friends for?”

She watched Maze leave, thinking to herself that maybe things would actually start to be okay from now on.

* * *

Lucifer was back and somehow things got even more wrong. ‘Forever’ had apparently meant ‘about five months’.

When he came walking into the precinct behind Chloe, Maze and the perps they'd gone out to arrest that day she had barely believed her eyes.

Maze was furious, that much was plain obvious. Chloe… she honestly couldn’t tell what Chloe was feeling, recognizing her ‘I’m working now, I’m gonna deal with my emotions later’ demeanor. But she guessed there were some pretty strong emotions involved.

Lucifer looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.

As for herself, well, she hated him for that. To walk back in here as if nothing had ever happened, as if they hadn’t all been heartbroken about him leaving so abruptly with them being none the wiser.

Throughout the entire time he was there he didn’t even glance in her direction. She knew, because through it all she had still missed him and had waited for him to come to her. She barely looked away for more than two seconds. Nothing. He and Chloe left again barely half an hour later.

She made her way over to Maze.

“What the hell,” she hissed.

“That,” Maze growled in response, “is a very good question.”

Honestly Ella didn’t know what she expected. Well, she had expected to never see him again and for months she had tried to suppress the feeling of loss she had been experiencing. I was her talk with Trixie actually that forced her to confront reality and she had been making progress in moving on.

Now he was back and all her carefully constructed walls had come crumbling down at the first sight of him and he hadn’t even taken note of her existence. And oh, it shouldn’t hurt so much, but he had been almost like a brother to her once and it did. It hurt so damn much.

And yes, maybe it had been uncharacteristic of her to not go to him instead, but even after everything the hurt of him leaving was still there. She had hoped he’d notice, that he’d come to seek her out, or at least look if she was there at all, but nothing. And that just made it a thousand times worse.

Maze continued. “Well, guess my time as a consultant is over. Back to being second place to everything.” She paused. Deflated. “Okay, no, that’s not fair. Thanks to you.” She elbowed Ella in the side.

That brought her out of her spiral. She smiled at Maze weakly. “Drinks?”

“You read my mind, Lopez. When are you off?”

* * *

It wasn’t until a few days later that Chloe and he came to a crime scene she was investigating.

“Hey, Ella, what do we have?” Chloe greeted.

“Hey Chlo. Lucifer.” ‘How was your trip to hell?’ she barely restrained herself from asking.

“Hello Ella,” he said and wow she hadn’t thought two words could make all her alarms blare this much but holy fuck that was just _wrong_.

Her head snapped up to look at him and she couldn’t refrain herself from asking, “dude, what the hell happened to you?”

She was a forensics tech, trained in noticing the small details, though usually on bodies that were already dead. That didn’t mean it didn’t work on alive bodies as well though.

He called her Ella. The American accent. No makeup. He was wearing _brown_ of all things. He looked like Lucifer but he behaved so, so very un-lucifer-ish.

He frowned. “Hell, exactly. I’ve been there for over a thousand years since we last saw each other. That much time changes a person.”

Right. Okay. Maybe it was Lucifer after all. “Oooh, sure, I get it now. Makes sense.”

She looked at Chloe. The detective just shrugged.

“You know, I’d ask if you had been replaced by a doppelganger, but since Chlo still seems to trust you I guess we’ll be fine,” she grinned. Maybe with a bit more teeth than necessary.

“Right, yes,” he answered slowly.

She consciously decided to not engage any further. “Ookay, back to work. From the way the blade is...”

* * *

Ella spent her weekend enjoying a Gravity Falls binge. It had been a while since she had last seen the show and she could use a good distraction. “The author of the journals, my brother,” she quoted along, when her phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Miss Ella? Um, this is Trixie. You said I could call you if I wanted to?” She sounded hesitant.

“Sure kiddo,” Ella assured her. “And you can just call me Ella, if you want to.”

“Okay.”

There was a pause.

When nothing seemed to be forthcoming from Trixie’s end, she prompted her. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

That seemed to do the trick. “Lucifer is being weird,” she complained.

Ella hummed. “Why do you say that?”

“When he came home with mommy the first time a few days ago he acted like he didn’t know me. He was weird all evening. Every time I go to hug him, he acts like he doesn’t remember how it works again. And he had been getting so good at it. He didn’t remember game night and he sounds funny now. But not funny like before, like laughing funny, but like weird funny. And, and he calls me Trixie now. He never did that before! It’s weird and I don’t like it. When I asked mommy about it she just said he went through something difficult and that it’s normal he’s a bit different now, but when I asked Maze, she said that even after eons in hell he had only changed slowly and never this much and she is still angry at him or something because she keeps looking at him so weird and I get why he left now, but I think something is really wrong and I don’t know what to do.”

When she went to take a breath Ella inserted herself quickly.

“Hey, slow down a bit there, I’m not that fast anymore. So you think something’s wrong because Lucifer is acting weird and you don’t know what to do about it. Am I getting this right?”

“Mmhm.”

“Okay.” She thought for a minute. “Yeah, I’ve also noticed that he's acting a bit weird. He calls me Ella now and he never did that before. I have to say though, I haven’t talked to him a lot since he came back because I’m still angry at him.” She frowned at herself. “Okay no, that’s not quite right. I’m not angry anymore, but I’m sad because he also acts like he barely remembers me. You know, he used to come into my lab a lot just to listen to me talk about my work. He doesn’t do that anymore. But! He’s only been back for not even two weeks and well, I still don’t know what he did when he was gone, so maybe try being patient with him. I think he has trouble adjusting to being back here, so maybe just give him some time?”

“Well, he _was_ in hell,” Trixie mused, and Ella wondered about that. Was it just her childish naivete, or was there something more to her believing Lucifer’s claims? “I guess coming back to earth is difficult for him. Maze said it usually isn’t like this, but this time she wasn’t with him. Hm. Okay, thank you, Miss… Ella!”

“No problem, Trix. Glad I could help.”

“Okay, bye!” And then she hung up.

Ella stared back at her TV screen. What a weird talk. Then again that wasn’t unusual when it came to anything Lucifer related. 

She liked Trixie. If she thought too much about it, she saw a lot of herself in that kid. She just hoped she was gonna have a better childhood than she’d ever had. She would, if Ella Lopez had anything to say about it.

* * *

She slid into the chair next to Chloe that was currently unoccupied. Lucifer was apparently off running some errands or something.

“You know what we haven’t done in a while? Girl’s night! Now that Amenadiel is confident enough to handle Charlie himself for a few hours, we can actually get together for a smashing round of fun again!”

“You mean not just lamenting about how we want to kill Lucifer for disappearing on us again?” Chloe asked wryly.

“Exactly! So, you in?” Ella grinned.

“Sure, why not. Trixie is at Dan’s this weekend for a change again, so I’m free.”

“Maze already said she and Linda would come, so, Saturday? Maze said she wanted to find us a new location, ask her for the address.”

“Saturday works for me,” Chloe agreed.

“Great! I’ll let you get back to work then.” She slid out of the chair. “Have fun with your paperwooork~”

Chloe snorts. “Thanks, Ella.”

She winked back at her friend and went back to work.

* * *

They had ended up in a bar called The Lincoln near the Marina del Rey, and, as always, Maze had been spot-on when it came to locale. The drink list wasn’t in any way big, but the atmosphere was just right.

Ella barely waited for their first drink orders before diving into her favorite topic.

“Soo, how are things with you and Lucifer going?”

Chloe sighed and grabbed her drink. Ella grimaced. She already regretted asking. Maybe this hadn’t been the best topic to start with.

“I don’t know. Things have been kinda tense? I think we’re both not sure where to go from here and it’s making things kinda weird. He’s having trouble readjusting to being back here and I keep feeling like I’m one step from overstepping in some major way. Sometimes I think I’m really not cut out for this.”

“Well, in my opinion you’re doing really well,” Linda answered. “And for the rest, I did get him to agree to come back to therapy, -”

“You did!?” came the question from two directions. Chloe looked relieved and Maze shot Linda a sharp glare.

“Wait, he didn’t go to see you again right away?” Ella asked, confused.

“I really think it would help him,” Linda said to Maze.

“Well yeah,” Ella threw in.

“If you’re sure,” Maze answered, hesitant.

Chloe looked suspicious now. “Wait, what’s going on?”

Linda looked conflicted. “Nothing, Chloe, we’re both just worried about him.”

“Yeah, so am I,” she retorted.

An awkward silence followed, before Chloe sighed again. “Okay, fine, whatever. Linda, I trust your judgement.”

“Thank you,” the therapist answered.

“Also, I am way too sober for this still.”

“Cheers to that,” came from Maze.

“Okay but I gotta ask,” Ella started again, “how’s it going with the four of you?”

“Oh it’s going really well,” Linda blushed. “I’m not sure I’d really have expected it, but both those two extraterrestrials are learning really fast when it comes to co-parenting.” She leaned against Maze.

Maze grinned sharply at that. “I’d do anything for little Charlie.” And maybe it was Ella’s imagination, but her expression seemed to turn a bit pained at that admission. Linda squeezed her thigh.

“We’ve started transitioning him to solid foods,” Linda continued. “He really likes his mashed carrots.”

Chloe smiled. “Trixie really loved her peas back then. But oh the mess she would make.”

“Oh yes, there is no escaping the chaos,” Linda sighed dramatically and grinned. “Woe to whoever gets saddled with him when we’re going on our first date as a trio.” She winked at Chloe.

Chloe chuckled. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

* * *

Ella was in the middle of explaining that the nail polish found on the crime scene contained what she assumed to be platinum to Chloe and Lucifer, when she saw Candy coming up to her lab. Ella grinned and waved at her.

“Hey Ella,” she said, smiling.

Chloe pulled a face and left with a hasty “Excuse me.” Ouch.

Candy looked after her and sighed, before turning towards the self-proclaimed Devil. “Lucifer, I heard you were back, why didn’t you call me? This was the soonest I could get away from the club long enough to drive to LA and I was worried about you.”

He in turn looked very uncomfortable at that. Serves him right, Ella thought. “Ah, I’m sorry?”

“Yeah you better be.” Candy sighed again. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You missed the club’s 25th anniversary, you know? And you’d as good as promised.”

He seemed to struggle for an answer. “Yes, I am sorry, though I do have a very good reason.”

Candy looked at Ella. “Yeah, I’ve heard bits and parts of it. By the way, congratulations to you and Chloe. Maybe one day she’ll manage to have a conversation with me.” She looked out of the lab, but Chloe had vanished to somewhere entirely else. “That marriage really wasn’t the best idea you ever had.” She turned back towards Lucifer. “Anyway, since you still haven’t answered any of my texts, I’m assuming you got a new phone. So, can I get your number, stranger?”

“Ah, yes, sure.” He grinned at her. She handed him her phone and sent him a message as soon as she got it back.

“Just in case you don’t remember mine,” she said conspiratorially.

He stared at the message a bit too long, before putting the phone back into his pocket.

Candy’s smile fell and recovered almost as quickly.

“Well, I just gotta say I had a great two weeks after you picked me up at that rundown club of mine, it’s a shame things between us didn’t work out isn’t it? I would have loved a repeat performance of that.” She snorted. “Only took you disappearing for half a year for us to see each other again for the first time since then.”

“Yes, maybe we should meet up for more pleasant reasons. Hm.” He seized her up. “How about you call me, if you have some more… fun… reasons in mind?”

His gaze turned towards the bullpen, now also searching for Chloe through the glass of the lab. “Though I do have to get back to work now. It was good to see you again.” He smiled and went to leave.

“Absolutely,” she chimed. “It was great to see you again too~”

She turned to Ella after he was well out of earshot. “ _That_ is not Lucifer.”

Ella was still staring after him. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that,” she said faintly.

“Really?” she asked, disbelievingly.

“To be fair we barely spoke more than five sentences since he’s been back,” Ella defended herself. “Which I now realize is actually suspicious in itself.”

She frowned. If anyone knew what was going on, it would probably be Maze. Come to think of it, maybe Linda too.

“Well, I can’t stay long enough to help you figure this one out, sadly,” Candy stated.

“Right. Do you have a place to stay for the night?”

“Actually I was planning on driving back today, but. Lucifer’s an uncle now, right?”

“Yeah, Amenadiel and Linda had a kid. He’s absolutely adorable!”

“You think they’d let me visit?”

“I don’t know? I could ask if you want. Though I doubt they’d let you stay the night.”

“Yeah no, I’d get a hotel then.”

Ella: _Hey, Candy’s in town and wants to know if she can come by to see Charlie_

Ella pondered that for a second. “Or you could stay at my place? I don’t have a guest bed, but I have no problems with taking the couch.”

Candy shook her head. “Oh no, if we’re gonna do this, I’ll be taking the couch.”

Ella looked at her, considering. “I mean, in theory I do have a double bed…”

She took a minute to think that over. “One thing you do have to know about me then is that I’m a cuddler.”

“Great, so am I,” Ella grinned.

Her phone vibrated

Linda: _She can come by if she wants. I have work, but Amenadiel is home, possibly Maze too. I’ll text them._

Ella: _kk_

“Well, Linda’s at work, but Maze and Amenadiel are probably home, so you’re good,” she relayed the news.

“Oh, when’s she done?”

“Around five-ish, I think?”

It was currently a bit past three in the afternoon.

Candy seemed to have made up her mind. "Okay. I'll see you later then?"

"Sure. I'll text you both addresses,” Ella let her know. “Have fun!" she said and hugged her goodbye.

Candy hugged her back. "Will do. See you later!"

With that she was on her way out of the precinct, but not without giving maybe-not-Lucifer another look before decidedly dismissing it.

And wasn't that a good question. It’s true that things had been weird, but that didn’t have to mean Lucifer had been replaced by an evil doppelganger. There was probably a perfectly logical explanation for this that wasn’t the plot of some mediocre science fiction novel. Really, evil twin was such an overused trope.

Still, Ella was a scientist at heart and once an hypothesis was formed the only way to prove or disprove it was through extensive testing. Many things so far could be counted towards the hypothesis being true, but it was time for her to do her own experiments.

* * *

‘Too bad Candy lives in Las Vegas,’ she thought. They had really hit it off when she had stayed over, bonus points to her being ace as well, but Ella had never been one for long-distance relationships.

One of the deciding factors for her moving to LA had been that she hadn’t had any meaningful connections in Detroit anyway. So there had been nothing for her to lose on that front. She did promise herself to try and stay more in contact with Candy from now on, her long-distance friendships usually didn’t suffer quite as much. Then again, the ones she had so far were born long-distance to begin with.

Well, nothing to do but wait and see how well this was gonna go.

Back to the problem at hand though-

Her phone rang.

“Hey Linda, what’s up?”

“Hello, sorry to bother you during work hours, but you know our date night Saturday? Date afternoon? Well, Chloe just called, she and Lucifer are gonna be on a stakeout at that time, which leaves me without a babysitter…”

Ella’s eyes lit up. “Say no more, I’d love to take care of little Charlie for a few hours.”

“Thank you Ella, I really appreciate it,” Linda said relieved.

“Don’t mention it. What are friends for after all?”

“Really though. If you could be at my place at 3 on Saturday that would be great.”

“I’ll be there.” Ella assured her.

“Thank you. Again. But I better let you get back to work now.”

“Yeah. See you on Saturday.”

She hung up.

An entire afternoon with the most adorable baby. Could there be anything better?

But yes, back to work. Focus, Ella, this was for science!

“Hey big guy,” she sidled up to ‘Lucifer’. “I just wanted to ask, do you remember that lovely night we had together, like, four years ago?”

“Um.” He blinked. “Yes? Why do you ask?”

“Well, thinking about it made me realize that I haven’t treated you well recently. Look, I understand now that you had no choice but to leave, but I was mad you left without saying anything, you know? Well, I realized I don’t want to stay mad at you, and my ignoring you once you were back wasn’t fair either, so I want to apologize. I brought you your favourite sandwiches?”

They were just your standard vending machine sandwiches that Lucifer loved to complain about.

He looked into the bag she had handed him. “Thank you, Ella.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I feel like I should apologize also for leaving this abruptly. I am sorry I caused you this much distress. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that, so don’t forget it.” 

Then she went in for the hug. And oh yeah, she noticed what Trixie had meant with the difference in his response. While Lucifer usually took a moment to remember what one was supposed to do during a hug, he had learned over the course of the last few years and had been settling down nicely into it after the initial confusion.

This felt much more like how Lucifer was right at the beginning of their friendship, complete panic on what to do with what was happening.

When she pulled back he was looking at her with complete loss.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked back.

“The- the hug and the… gift.”

And oh, this really reminded her so much of early Lucifer. “I did that because you’re my friend. And because I wanted to apologize for my behaviour that I’m sure must have hurt you.”

“I- well…”

She hugged him again. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.”

She let him go after a bit. “I do have to go back to work though. Feel free to drop by if you want to.”

She made her way back to her lab. Time to evaluate her findings. It was not memory loss. That’s why she dropped the four years ago line for. He clearly knew Chloe, so there were some things he definitely knew about. So she chose a time when he’d known her but not Ella yet. Secondly, she knew Lucifer said he never lied, so why would he lie about remembering her? 

Actually, that was the biggest piece of evidence she had for her hypothesis of this being not!Lucifer. For all his claims about not lying, he would have done that a lot in the last few weeks if he doesn’t remember much of before. And the thing is, why lie about that at all, if not to prevent then from finding out about his lack of memory? And what goal would that lead to?

She looked back at him. He was still holding the bag with the sandwiches, gazing at it with an expression of loss and confusion.

She needed to talk to someone else about this.

* * *

She was at Linda’s doorstep at three to the dot. The three lovebirds were already well on their way to getting ready when Amenadiel opened the door.

“Ella, so good to see you!” he greeted.

“You too, Ames.” He grimaced. “Meni?” 

He gave a short laugh. “No.” 

“Okay fine, guess I’ll have to think of something else then,” she grinned and entered.

Maze was with Charlie in his room. “Lopez!” she cried and closed the door behind her. “So good of you to join us. Let me give you the rundown. Feeding time is around five-thirty, food is in the cupboard next to the fridge. He’ll most likely get tired after that. He had teething pain until about yesterday evening, and we don’t expect it to start up again tonight but in case it does, teething ring is with the rest of his stuff. Er. Linda pinned all kinds of emergency numbers to the fridge. Oh, and watch this,” she said and placed the baby on the ground. Immediately he started crawling around the place and with quite the speed.

“Oh, he’s quite early with that, isn’t he?” Ella said surprised.

“That’s what Linda said too,” Maze grinned proudly. “Already outdoing all the other babies around him. He’s gonna be a great fighter one day.”

Suddenly she looked tense. “But to more important topics, how do I look? Am I- Is this good enough?”

Oh my god this was adorable, Ella thought. “What, is the great Mazikeen Smith feeling nervous perhaps?”

She growled before immediately deflating again. “I’ve never been on a date before. So you better be honest or else.”

Ella took a moment to take in her friend’s look. 

She was wearing a tight black leather dress that went down to mid-thigh, arms and shoulders bare. Adding to that fitting black high heels. Simple, but it really worked.

“Did you get your cosmetics tips from Lucifer?”

Maze shrugged. “I mean mostly, yeah.”

“Thought I’d recognized the style. I gotta say, it really works.”

“So you like it?”

“No one can resist those biceps, trust me.” Ella said confidently.

Maze leered at her. “I know.”

“So you know you have nothing to worry about. Seriously, you got this.”

And then, _oh holy shit_ , Maze went to hug her. It was a really short and rather awkward one, but it still left Ella staring at her with big eyes afterwards.

“Right,” Maze coughed. “Don’t mention this to _anyone_.”

She grinned. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

There was a knock on the door and then Linda entered. Charlie immediately made his way towards her and she picked him up.

She was wearing a white summer dress accented with yellow flowers and white sandals with only the barest hint of heel.

“Hello Ella,” she said, smiling.

“Hey Linda, you look great!” Ella grinned back.

“Thank you. Maze, are you ready to go?”

Maze stood up and went over to Linda, and oh, girl had it bad.

“Yeah,” she almost squeaked before coughing and trying again. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Linda nodded and gestured out the door as well as possible with an infant in her arms. They followed her out into the hallway.

“Okay Ella, feeding time is at five-thirty, food is-”

She held up a hand. “Maze already gave me a rundown.”

“She did?”

Maze and Ella nodded.

Ella leaned closer to Linda conspiratorially. “I think she rehearsed it beforehand.”

Though if she were to guess who was the most nervous about leaving Charlie with her, her bet would have been on Linda. Maze had to have gotten that whole spiel from somewhere after all.

“Alright. We’ll be back at ten the latest. If anything is wrong, call us immediately, all our phones are on.”

Amenadiel joined them in the hallway. “Linda it’s gonna be fine. Don’t worry so much.”

He was now wearing a bright blue button down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms, black pants and black shoes.

And the three of them standing next to each other made a very interesting picture. Linda, who was even smaller than her, standing between Amenadiel and Maze, who with her heels had added quite a lot of height. The contrast between Maze’s and Linda’s dresses that couldn’t be bigger. They were such opposites in almost every way but they still fit together so perfectly.

She went to take Charlie. “I’m really so happy for you guys. Now, everything’s going to be fine, Linda, this is far from my first babysitting job. Go enjoy yourselves, I got this.”

She shooed them out the door, and with a chorus of ‘Goodbye Charlie’ they were gone.

She looked at the boy in her arms. “Now, what to do with you?”

He cooed at her. Her expression immediately melted. “Aw, who’s the most adorable baby in the entire world? You are, yes, you are.” Charlie giggled and tugged at her hair.

The afternoon went by pretty uneventful aside from a simple diaper change. He wasn’t a fussy baby, or at least today he wasn’t and when the time came to feed him Ella wasn’t expecting any problems there either.

Putting Charlie in the high chair, she went to locate the glasses of baby food. “HiPP carrots, corn & beef,” she read. “Truly exquisite cuisine, what do you think?”

Charlie wiggled in his chair.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She warmed up the mush and sat down next to the baby to feed him. “Alright kiddo, open up, here comes the airplaaane-”

The spoon had gotten just close enough for Charlie to reach and it was looking good on the no fussing front-

And in the next instant the spoon was gone. As in, it disappeared. Charlie giggled.

“What the hell?” Ella looked around. Somehow, from one moment to the next, it had ended up on the floor. Along with the food on it.

Ella sighed and went to clean up the mess, the weirdness of the incident almost forgotten once she was finished.

“How about we try that again, hm, little guy?”

She picked up another spoonful of food. “Oh look, the train is coming towards the tunnel, choo choo.”

As soon as it was in reach of the infant however, the spoon disappeared from her hand again.

She looked at the floor in suspicion, Charlie’s laughter in the background and yep, there it was, content again all over the tiles. 

“Okay, something really freaky is going on here,” she said to herself

Once was a coincidence, twice was a hypothesis…

She cleaned only the spoon this time, figuring she could deal with the mess on the floor after feeding time was over.

Again, she approached Charlie with the food and…

Yep, there it was again on the floor, with her still being none the wiser what the hell was happening between those two instances of her having the spoon and it ending up down there.

Super speed, she thought. But that didn’t explain why she didn’t hear it falling.

Honestly the entire thing was ridiculous. She huffed a laugh. “Magic baby. Sure, why not.” When had she become the babysitter from the end of the Incredibles? Though so far Charlie had only shown one type of ability, magical spoon-throwing.

That’s when her phone rang and yeah, she flinched. Honestly who wouldn’t.

It was Amenadiel. “Hey, Amenadiel, what’s up?” she said, hoping he couldn’t hear how her breathing was still too fast.

“Ah, just wanted to check in. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” ‘By the way, did you know your kid’s magic?’ She barely restrained herself from laughing. “But great timing, what do you usually do when Charlie’s throwing his food?” Because that’s what it was in the end, any supernatural abilities notwithstanding. She mechanically prepared another spoonful.

“Usually we just wait a few minutes and then try again.”

Normal solution to extraordinary problems. She could do that.

“Hm, that’s what I would have done anyways, but thanks. Anyway, how is it going?”

“Oh, we’re having a great day. But I better get going again,-”

The spoon reached Charlie. The spoon was on the ground.

“- at me suspiciously.”

And suddenly she had her answer. “Yeah, I’ll see you later.” She hung up as quickly as she could. 

Stopping time. And Amenadiel was not affected.

When had her life become a cheesy fantasy novel? Or no, better yet, some really weird… bible fanfiction…

“Holy shit.”

Charlie squealed in delight.

She finished feeding the baby and then set him down in his own room so he could move about freely while she was sorting through her thoughts.

If Lucifer was who he always said he was then Linda was currently on a date with an angel and a demon and she was babysitting a half-angel. Assuming that Linda was still human, but she’s never claimed to be anything else? So, Linda knew and Trixie knew and Candy- probably not? Though she couldn’t be sure. Dan definitely didn’t know.

She tracked Charlie’s progress through the room. Once or twice he’d appear somewhere else from where he’d been just a moment ago. Ella frowned. She didn’t think she would have gotten to babysit if the others had known he could do this. Which means they probably didn’t. Or maybe they’re suspecting it now and Amenadiel had called to find out if she’d seen anything weird.

Then again she hadn't been supposed to babysit in the first place, which meant Chloe also knew. Probably. It would make sense at least.

None of this explained what the hell was going on with Lucifer though.

Hell…

When she’d asked Maze where Lucifer had gone seven months ago, that had been her answer. But was it Lucifer who came back?

She wasn’t sure which answer she preferred. Her Lucifer, still in Hell and whatever had replaced him was doing a very bad impression of him, or Lucifer having come back so changed she barely even recognized him anymore.

She really wished her Lucifer were here now. She had so many questions.

Charlie had apparently tired himself out and was currently falling asleep on the floor. She picked him up and put him in his bed, then quietly left the room. The baby monitor was in the living room, so that’s where she went.

After Charlotte had been killed, she had been moving away from the belief she’d held since she was a teenager. She never had considered herself an atheist, she just didn’t know what to believe anymore. If anyone had asked, she wouldn’t have known what to tell them. Agnostic with leanings to Christianity maybe.

Now she almost had proof and she wanted to laugh at the fact that she had apparently somehow ended up in the right religion, but that that religion was still so completely wrong that her maybe-belief wasn’t any further from the truth than what the official catholic church would have you believe. Maybe she had come even closer on her own. God at least didn’t seem to be someone she’d trust again any time soon.

She didn’t know what to do with this information, so instead she just opted to… not deal with it right now.

She leaned against the backrest of the couch and her gaze again fell onto the ceiling fan. She started to giggle. At least that made sense now. She wondered if he’d shown any signs of wings so far. Angel babies. Not something she thought she’d ever get to see, that much was for certain.

That’s where she was still sitting when the trio came back home around half past ten. It had taken her a while to calm down, but she didn’t feel like she would fall apart at the entire thing again for the foreseeable future. 

She smiled at them. “So, did you have a nice date?”

“Oh yes, it was very lovely,” Linda smiled back.

“I’m glad to hear that.” She really was. Those three were so good together.

An angel, a demon and a human go on a date… Oh no, she was not going there right now.

“Did you have any trouble?” Amenadiel tore her from her thoughts.

She turned to him. “No, everything was fine. You have a great kid.”

Maze nodded satisfactory at that.

Just one more thing. “Hey Maze, I need to talk to you about something bigger, can we meet up sometime soon?”

The demon thought for a moment. “I’m going for drinks with Decker next Friday, you can join us if you want?”

“Sure, that works.” She could wait that long for answers. Probably. 

Ah well. It was time for her to make her exit. “Well, I should probably get going now.”

“Yes. Thank you again for watching him,” Amenadiel said.

“Oh, the pleasure was all mine.” She was halfway out the door when she leaned close to Linda, who was still standing on the threshold. “By the way, did you know your child is magic?”

Amenadiel jerked up at that. So he heard that, huh?

She skipped out the door. “Byeee~" she said and closed it behind her.

Muffled by the door between them now she heard Linda asking, “what did she mean by that?”

And maybe she shouldn’t feel this gleeful about it, but she was allowed to sow some chaos once in a while, wasn’t she?

* * *

The stakeout didn't end until Wednesday, after which Not!Lucifer came into her lab, clearly worked up about something.

"How can people stand being in confined spaces with another person for such a prolonged amount of time?"

Ella hummed. "Well to be fair I have heard from multiple sources that stakeouts do bring out the worst in people."

He looked at her, irritated.

"But! To answer your actual question, usually you only spend that much time with people you care about. Family, friends. Though granted, even then you can leave whenever you want."

He looked like that was a concept he didn't understand. "But why would you want to?"

"Huh?"

"I understand having to spend that much time with your family. It’s unavoidable. But why would you willingly spend time with others you have no relation to?"

"Because you care about them and enjoy their company?"

He still looked unconvinced.

She paused her work. "Look, if it helps you make more sense, family doesn't just have to be the people you are related to. A lot of people choose the people they consider their family for themselves."

"You would willingly seek out other people to spend time with for a prolonged period of time?"

"I mean yeah?” She thought for a moment. “Look, you just came to me, didn't you?"

"Yes, because I wanted to get away from someone else," he stated with incredible conviction.

"Mhm, but instead of finding somewhere to be alone, you still went to someone else to spend time with."

"I… guess."

He seemed to think about that and Ella left him to it. They sat in silence for a while before Not!Lucifer remembered that Chloe’s shift was over for the day and he could go home now.

* * *

Maze had invited them back to the Lincoln. The locale had impressed just enough last time, and that coupled with the rather cheap drinks was enough for a repeat performance.

Though Ella really wasn’t here for the drinks this time.

She studied Maze closely for a minute before diving right in.

“That’s not Lucifer, is it?”

Chloe looked at her bewildered.

Maze sighed heavily before leaning back in her chair. “Did you know Lucifer has a twin brother?” she asked casually.

“Really?” she asked back.

“Mhm.”

“Identical?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I see.” She pondered that for a moment.

Chloe looked like she was about to be sick. Apparently things had clicked for her as well now.

“What’s that twin’s name?” she continued asking.

“Michael.”

And oh, _that_ was Michael? The Archangel?

Chloe looked like she was gonna kill Maze any second now, so Ella decided to ask the question that seemed most important right now.

“What is the one thing someone could threaten you with?”

Ella had never seen Maze this close to breaking like she had in that moment. She desperately never wanted to see it again.

“Charlie. If anyone were to tell Heaven about him.”

She frowned. “That bad?”

“We don’t know. We don’t know what they’d do, but everything points to ‘Nothing good’. Every minute he stays hidden is a good one.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Chloe hissed.

“Because I tried to keep you from doing something stupid,” Maze shot back.

Chloe threw her hands in the air. “Oh, like what, having sex with him?”

“I told you not to,” she countered.

“Yeah, and when I asked you why, you didn’t give me an answer!”

And now Maze was pissed as well. “No, I asked you to trust me, and then you didn’t.”

She decided to intervene. "Okay. Stop, both of you. Maze, _why_ didn’t you tell her?"

"Mike said he wanted to 'take over' Lucifer’s life. Fuckall knows what that's supposed to mean. Anyway, I don't think he would have reacted well to you knowing about that, so. I didn’t tell you."

"And you think I wouldn't have helped you keep up the pretense?" Oh, Ella realized. She was hurting.

"Please, I've seen how bad you are at lying. For a former actress that is one thing you're really terrible at."

Chloe was withdrawing from the conversation and Ella didn’t know what to do.

Maze continued. "Ey, Linda said this would be the best course of action. You know she's seeing him bi-weekly by now and for some reason she's still convinced it's helping."

"Oh, so Linda was allowed to know."

"It’s her child that is in the most danger right now." She let out a sound that was a mix between sigh and growl. "He does not seem interested in actually harming someone, so we decided this was the best way to play it."

Chloe’s eyes widened. "Does that mean Lucifer is still in Hell?" She looked like her world just shattered again.

"Yes. He is."

"I- uh, I think I'm gonna go now," she whispered.

Ella hugged her before she could get up. "I'm so sorry," she said.

"Thanks, Ella,” she said and extracted herself from the sideways hug. “I will be okay. At some point."

Then she left.

Ella turned towards the demon. "Is he ever coming back?"

Maze just shook her head. She didn't want to know if it meant no or that she just didn't know.

"Why did he leave?"

"You remember the Mayan massacre?"

She huffed a laugh. "Kinda hard to forget."

Maze nodded. "Well, a bunch of demons were possessing those corpses to kidnap Charlie. Only an angel can rule over hell and to keep him and the rest of humanity safe, he decided to go back. And then didn’t tell anyone about it," she grumbled. But there was no anger left behind it.

Neither was there in her. Some part of her would always hurt over him leaving, but this was the last piece she needed to stop herself from blaming him. In the end there hadn’t been any choice but for him to just leave from one day to the next.

In a way it had also helped her. She’d realized she had a great support network of friends that she now knew she could rely on to keep her safe and help her pick up the pieces. And she would always do the same for them in return.

Other people’s problems, right?

She looked at Maze determined. "So, how do I help?"

* * *

Ella frowned at her phone. There was a call she should make, but she had no idea how that was going to go over. Still, ignorance was bliss, but knowledge was power. She pressed the call button.

"Wow, no one's ever called me before!" the girl’s voice answered.

Ella chuckled. "Hey Trix. And really?"

"No, my friends usually just text."

"I see. Well then congratulations to your first important phone call."

"Thanks!"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

"Mmmmmno, you're good."

"Uh-huh. Are you doing your homework?"

"...yeees?"

"Or are you just watching TV?" she smirked.

"Er…" she could hear her shifting on what she assumed was the couch.

"Don't worry, I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “But, I actually called because I wanted to talk about Lucifer."

Maze had asked her if she could tell Trixie about that whole mess, claiming she still wasn't any good at emotions. She had then asked Chloe if she should talk to Trix about it and the detective had agreed.

“Did you know he has a twin?” she asked.

Trixie gasped. “Really? That is so cool! I wish I had a twin.”

Ella smiled. "Hmmm. And you know how he's been all weird since he came back?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, Lucifer’s twin, his name is Michael, decided that trying to be Lucifer was a great idea.”

Ella could almost hear Trixie’s frown. “Like in ‘The Parent Trap’?”

“Well, kinda. ...wait how do you even know that movie?"

"I watch a _lot_ of TV when I'm home alone," she stage-whispered.

"I see." Honestly, what kid didn't? “The thing is, Michael took Lucifer’s place, but Lucifer didn’t take Michael’s. Maze told me he does not want others to find out he’s not Lucifer.”

“Why not?”

And wasn’t that the question everyone was asking themselves. “We don’t know, but one reason could be that he just likes being here and doesn’t want to be forced to leave,” she explained. “Now, the big problem with this is that he knows about Charlie and he could tell his siblings about him. And from what I understand they don’t like half-angel babies existing.”

“Why not?” she repeated.

“Well, they think that an angel and a human having a child together is wrong. If they knew about him they would probably take him to heaven,” if not outright kill him. Man, what would happen to him then? This shit was way beyond her. “You have probably heard Lucifer talk about his family, right?”

The girl hummed.

“Yeah, they’re not the nicest people,” Ella continued. And wasn’t that a wild thing to admit to.

“Hm, mostly he just talks about his dad. I guess Michael doesn’t want to go back there either.”

Could it really be that simple? Somehow it didn’t seem right.

“Maybe you’re right. Hm. Got any theories on why he's pretending to be Lucifer then and not just showed up as himself?”

“Wellll he’s a lot like Lucifer right? When I first met Lucifer he had no idea how to make friends. Or what friends were. Or how friends worked. Maybe he thought that the only way to get people to like him was pretending to be someone else?”

“Hmm, he told me he didn’t understand why people would willingly spend time with one another.. That doesn’t quite fit with him wanting to make friends, right?”

“Maybe, but Lucifer thought for a looong time that friendships work like deals. Maybe he thinks they’re something similar too?”

Ella huffed a laugh. Here she was, discussing the mental works of an angel with an eleven-year-old. ‘I’m almost twelve!’ she was sure Trixie would correct her. “I think you could be right. I just wanted to say, be careful around him. We still don’t know what exactly he wants.”

But Trixie’s enthusiasm was unstoppable.“I’m gonna be the bestest friend he’s ever had!”

Ella smiled. “You do that.” There was nothing that could beat a child’s joie de vivre. “Good luck!”

“Thanks!” 

Trixie hung up.

And then Ella thought, ‘Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt.’

* * *

Two days later Michael came into her lab, clearly irritated.

“The child threatened me.”

What? 

She turned around to him and laughed, stressed. “Who, Charlie?”

“No, Trixie,” he frowned and crossed his arms.

Oh shit.

He looked at her searchingly. “I am confused.”

She sighed, swallowed. “Why? What did she say?”

“She said that I was her friend, but that she’d kick me into the sun if I’d do anything to hurt Charlie. Or her mother, or you, or Maze, honestly she kept listing quite a few people.” His frown deepened. “And not that it would hurt me, but I don’t understand.”

Oh damn, that girl had quite the confidence. Well, Michael didn’t look like he was planning some kind of retribution, so that was good, probably.

“Ah,” she said at a loss on how to continue. “Hm. We humans do this a lot, actually. It is… Shit, how do I explain this? It, er, it’s, like, a symbolic act to declare who you consider under your protection, who you care about.” She paused. “It mostly happens in families when a new possible family member is introduced. They first have to prove that they have no ill intentions before being fully accepted.”

He thought about that for a minute. “But Charlie is not part of her family. Neither are you for that matter.”

At least now they were in familiar territory again. “Do you remember what I told you about chosen families? Apparently Charlie and I are part of hers. And so are you, otherwise she wouldn’t have made that declaration, but just dismissed you completely to begin with.”

He didn’t seem convinced.

“Look, if you still have trouble understanding the entire concept, talk to Linda about it, I’m sure she can explain this better than me.” This was absolutely not her area of expertise.

“We did talk about the entire family thing already, but I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding.”

She decided to make one last attempt, for his sake. “I think the most important thing to know is that we all want the people we consider family to be happy. And I’ll have to agree with Trixie here, if you do anything to make anyone I consider family unhappy, you’ll have to deal with a very angry Ella. And I can assure you, you do not want that. But,” she adds on. Time to take a leap. “I’d say the same thing to anyone I’d consider inviting to my family group, which does include you by now. That’s what being part of a family means. Always being ready to throw down for one another.”

That stumped him. “You consider me part of your family?”

“Yeah, you idiot,” she said and punched him lightly in the shoulder.

She had the feeling he left even more confused than when he arrived.

* * *

Through all the excitement she had almost forgotten that Trixie’s birthday was coming up and now she was scrambling to find a good gift for her. The girl had decided to have two different parties, one with all her school friends and one with all the adults in her life (and Charlie).

But what to get a twelve year old?

In the end she decided to stay somewhat on the topic of current life events and bought her Enid Blyton’s The Twins at St. Clare’s.

It was a quarter after three and almost everyone was there. Herself, Maze, Linda, Amenadiel and Charlie, Chloe, obviously, and Michael and honestly she was just going to call him Mike from now on. The only ones missing were Dan and-

A highly energetic Penelope Decker came breezing through the door.

“Now, where is my favorite granddaughter?”

“Grandma Penny!” Trixie exclaimed and latched herself onto the woman.

“Look at how big you’ve gotten!” she answered and hugged back. “Now let grandma sit down, would you?”

She looked at the assorted party guests. “Now, who do we all have here? Lucifer, so good to see you again, how have you been?”

“Fine, thank you,” he said blandly.

Penelope frowned and looked at her daughter, who had trailed in after her.

Chloe shrugged. “Don’t mind him, he’s had a rough year.”

“Ah. Yes, everyone’s got those at some point. Maze, good to see you too.”

The demon gave her a grin and a thumbs up.

She turned to Amenadiel. “Right, I remember you, you’re Lucifer’s brother, but I seem to have forgotten your name.” She laughed, slightly embarrassed.

“I’m Amenadiel. This is Linda and our child, Charlie.”

“Amenadiel, right. Nice to meet you Linda. And aren’t you a cutie,” she said to Charlie.

Ella decided to take the initiative herself, because she knew firsthand how captivating Charlie’s presence could be. “Hi, I’m Ella.”

Penelope smiled. “Nice to meet you too, Ella.”

She turned back to Chloe. “Now Chloe, where is that ex-husband of yours?”

Her mood sured considerably. “I don’t know, mom.” She glanced at Trixie, who was currently occupied with Charlie. “Hey, if he doesn’t show up, can I talk to you about that later?”

“Sure thing honey.”

Ella sighed. ‘Oh Dan, what are you doing?’

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes and Ella observed Michael, wondering if he had ever been to this type of social gathering before. Probably not, was her conclusion, he looked decidedly uncomfortable and had no idea what to do with himself.

Trixie was shooting question after question about Charlie’s half-angel status at Linda and Amenadiel, most of which were answered with ‘I don’t know’.

Penelope was giving her daughter some very concerned looks.

“Okay!” Chloe said, “how does everyone feel about cake?”

Trixie looked up at that, scanning the room and then deflating again. “Do you think dad’s still gonna come?”

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know, monkey.”

Trixie nodded, her expression one of someone whose expectations have been disappointed one too many times.

Eating cake was a rather subdued affair after that, broken only by the hilarity of Amenadiel trying and failing to feed Charlie some cake without it ending up everywhere. Linda shot her an amused glance. Ella smiled back.

“Mom, why do I still have to stay with him?”

She threw a glance at Trixie before focussing back on the cake in front of her. Yeahhh that was not a conversation to be had while surrounded by other people.

“Trixie monkey, can we talk about that later?” Chloe asked calmly.

The girl continued on. “I don’t get it. He’s never here, he barely talks to me and he never does anything! Why do I STILL have to spend time with him?”

Ella was trying her best to seem like she wasn’t listening.

“Now Beatrice, that is no way to talk about your father,” Penelope started, but Chloe cut her off. 

She reached out a hand towards Trixie. “I get it, I really do and I promise we’ll talk about it later, okay?”

The girl slumped in her chair. “I wish someone else was my dad.”

Ella looked up to see Michael look quite shocked at that. She didn’t have time to wonder what exactly had caused that reaction because Penelope spoke up again.

“He was such a loving father once, really, I’m sure-”

“NO!” Trixie screamed and jumped up. “I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT!” and ran to her room.

“Mom!” Chloe exclaimed. 

Charlie had started crying.

Amenadiel stood up and smiled awkwardly. “I’m gonna take him outside for a bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, to no one in particular.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Ella reassured her, “we’re all friends here.” She stood up as well. “I’m gonna go see if I can do anything, okay?”

Chloe just nodded.

Ella knocked on the door to Trixie’s room. “Hey kiddo, can I come in?”

She heard Trixie sniffle behind the door before she heard a very timid “Okay.”

She slipped in and closed the door behind her again. “Wow that was a lot back there, huh?”

She cringed internally. Great start Ella, really.

Trixie was sitting on her bed, eyes red-rimmed and hugging her knees. She sat down next to her.

“Why can’t I have a nice dad?”

Ella sighed. “Sadly we can’t choose the family we were born into. You can only choose how to deal with it, and, once you’re older, whether you want to deal with them at all.”

“But I don’t want to deal with him _now_.”

“Hmmm. Well, that’s not a decision you can make alone at the moment. That’s really something you should talk to your mom about.”

“Okay,” she said weakly. She leaned against Ella. The forensic wrapped her arm around the girl.

“But you know what you can control?”

Trixie looked up at her.

“Who you want to add to your family.”

She sniffed. “Like you.”

Ella smiled. “Yeah. Like me, like Maze and Linda and Charlie and Lucifer.”

“I miss him so much.” her voice cracked.

Ella was saddened to see that the girl had started crying again. She held her tighter.

“I miss him too.”

“Everything would be so much better if he were here. He would make fun of dad and he’d get me and mom to laugh again and then he’d bring me all the ice cream because he hates it when I cry.” She laughed weakly. “I think he still has no idea what to do when I’m upset but he still does the right things, you know?”

“Yeah he’s amazing like that.”

“I just want him to actually be here.”

“Me too, Trix.”

They sat in silence for a bit. After a few minutes Trixie’s breathing started to even out again.

Ella nudged her. “You ready to go back out there?”

She shook her head against Ella’s side. “I think… I think I wanna stay here a bit longer.”

“Want me to stay?”

“No,” she slowly pulled away. “You can go.”

Ella squeezed her one more time and got up.

“Aright kiddo. See you in a few.”

The rest of the gang had taken their cake and migrated to the living room. Chloe and her mother were apparently hotly debating her life choices, which Maze was watching with avid interest.

Amenadiel was still missing and Linda was trying to explain to Mike that a child defying their parents was a pretty normal thing.

Wow, he seriously had no idea what life Lucifer had been leading before getting here.

Chloe glanced at her and Ella gave her a thumbs up. Chloe nodded back.

She sat down on Linda’s other side.

“And yes, family members have arguments, but most of the time the people involved manage to clear up their differences and come to a peaceful solution, which is what I’m expecting is going to happen between Chloe and Penelope and Trixie and Chloe. I’m sure this is not the first time it has come to such disagreements between them and I’m certain it won’t be the last either.”

Michael was contemplating that.

Linda continued. “Sometimes however, the disagreements are too big to settle, or the parties involved do not make the effort to reconcile with the other. Now, I don’t know Dan very well but that seems to be the case here. From what I know he’s gotten a lot of chances to fix his mistakes, because in the end he is family and that is not something you can abandon just like that. In those cases, the people involved usually agree to simply go their separate ways and, well, ignore the other’s existence.

“Trixie’s response to her father’s unwillingness to change is as far as I understand completely justified. What happened with your family is definitely not standard practice for humans and parents who react to their child’s disagreeing by throwing them out of the house are usually seen as overreacting and often end up being shunned by their community.”

Mike shook his head. “But father’s rule is absolute. He- I knew that before I went in and everyone suffered the consequences for it.”

Ella watched Linda debate something internally, who then apparently came to the conclusion not to address whatever it was right now. So she took the opportunity to ask something herself.

“How many angels fell that day?”

Michael looked pained. “Just- just me. In the end I stood alone.”

Ella took a breath to ask her next question, when Amenadiel came back in with Charlie. The infant had apparently finally settled down.

Chloe and Penelope had ended their argument and Chloe had gone to check on Trixie. Maze was using the opportunity to ask Penny embarrassing questions about Chloe’s childhood, from what Ella could hear, which the woman was only too happy to answer.

Mike stared at Charlie and shook his head. “I do not understand children.”

Amenadiel laughed. “Oh come now Luci, you’ve made so much progress there since you met Trixie. Here, why don’t you hold him for a minute?”

Michael leaned away from his brother. “Really, I don’t think I’m cut out for that.”

“Oh no, I insist. It’s important for him to bond with his uncle, you know?”

So now Mike had Charlie in his arms. Linda was watching them like a hawk and honestly who could blame her. She relaxed marginally when no imminent danger seemed to be forthcoming.

Michael looked like he had no idea what to do with himself now and the only commentary Ella could offer was a repeat of something she had said so many times already.

“Isn’t he adorable?”

He still stared at Charlie in absolute bewilderment. “He is, ah, not bad for a child, I suppose.”

Amenadiel grinned. “Come now, we all know you already love him.” He grew serious then. “You already went to hell for him, there is no denying how much you care about him anymore. You can stop pretending otherwise, you know.”

Michael looked incredibly uncomfortable at that. “Yes, well.”

Linda, apparently satisfied with the development of the situation, turned towards Ella then. “How are you holding up by the way? Now that you know?”

She blinked. “Oh, I’m good. I’ve believed for a long time, you know? That doesn’t just go away. Turns out the entire thing is just a lot… messier than I expected.”

“Ha, I can definitely understand that feeling.”

“I mean I do have some concerns when it comes to what this all means in a theological sense, but I doubt that’s something you can help me with,” she smirked.

Linda grinned. “No, that’s certainly not my area of expertise.”

“Yeah I thought so.”

That’s when Chloe came back with Trixie in tow. The girl looked contrite.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” she mumbled.

A chorus of ‘It’s alright’ and ‘Don’t worry about it’ answered back.

She sat down next to Maze and her mother put a plate of cake in her lap.

“So,” Ella started, “what are your plans for your other birthday party?”

And with that, the rest of the day was starting to get back on track.

* * *

It wasn’t until a week later that Chloe seemingly had words with Dan, because the detective was now openly harassing Mike in the bullpen. Ella didn’t hear what was being said, but if she had to guess it went along the lines of ‘You ruined my entire life, how dare you ruin it even more, you’ve already taken Chloe away from me and now you want to take Trixie too’, as if Lucifer ever had anything to do with Dan’s shitty life choices.

She idly wondered what Michael was replying, but whatever it was, it apparently enraged Dan enough to swing a punch at him. Ella tensed, but the angel barely moved and Dan was left shaking his hand, and in obvious pain. He hurriedly rushed off after that.

She wondered how that worked. She had seen Lucifer injured more times than she could count by now but Mike seemed to be completely unfazed.

And now he was coming her way.

“I get the distinct impression he doesn’t like me,” he opened. “Why?”

And when had she become his go-to source for all things he didn’t understand when in the precinct?

“Dan? Yeah, he likes to put the blame for his own failures on other people. Or more specifically, you. He loves to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions and that’s why someone else has to be responsible for everything that goes wrong in his life.” She paused, remembering something. “But you get that a lot, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, an entire religion blaming you for things you had absolutely no hand in? ‘Oh, the devil made me do it.’ With Dan it’s just a bit more personal. Millennia of being blamed for all evil, at some point one probably starts thinking, ‘what if they're right?’ I can’t even imagine what that would be like. But hey, I know you’re not. Responsible for all the evil in the world, that is.” She smiled at him.

“Oh, erm. Thank you?” He awkwardly stepped backwards to the door. “But I better get going again.”

“Sure thing,” she replied, watching him leave.

Was it wrong for her to find some pleasure in making him uncomfortable? Nah, serves him right for pretending to be his brother.

She felt sad for the lost friendship between Dan and Lucifer. They’d gotten along so well for a while there.

She saw them again later, when she was bringing the forensic results to one of the other detectives. Mike had cornered Dan near the breakroom and concerned about what might happen, she stepped closer. Damn it, she thought, where was Chloe when one needed her?

“What the hell do you want from me man? Leave me alone.”

“Daniel Espinoza,” Michael started and holy shit he could do scary.

Yeah, she’d seen Lucifer do scary once or twice before so this really shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the only two modes she’d seen Mike in so far had been confused or uncomfortable. This was- this was something else.

“What do you fear?”

Dan’s eyes widened, and his breathing sped up. “To lose the respect of the people around me. To lose this job. Also flying spiders.”

And oh, was that how he managed to find Maze’s biggest weakness? She’d seen Lucifer do his desire thing before, but compared to what she was witnessing now, that one seemed absolutely harmless. Dan was halfway to a panic attack already and Michael was still not done.

Michael nodded. “You have taken care of the first thing yourself. I will take care of the second. As for the _flying spiders_ , those will await you once you are in hell, have no doubt about that.”

And now Ella became acutely aware of how dangerous what they were doing actually was. She had no illusions Lucifer couldn’t also be extremely vindictive if he felt like it, but with him at least she knew where they were at. But with Michael, they still had no idea what his intentions actually _were_ or how far he would go to get there.

She should ask. She should just ask. ‘Why did you do that?’ Five simple words and they would have at least some answers but right now she really, really couldn’t. Not after that performance. So instead she carefully made her way back to her lab.

Two days later Dan had been kicked to the curb. Whatever Michael did to get the lieutenant to fire one of his own, she _really_ didn’t want to know. Suffice to say that stuff like that never happened. Even if it really should. So that Mike managed it at all was crazy scary.

* * *

“Chloe seems to be upset with me.”

Ella flinched. Again?

Okay, no need to panic. “Honestly, when isn’t she?”

She turned towards him. He looked at her questioningly.

“I’ve lost count of the times you two had an argument,” she elaborated. “What did you do this time?”

“I don’t know.”

She really wasn’t equipped to deal with this. This was Linda’s job.

She sighed. “Okay, what exactly did she say?”

He furrowed his brows. “She, well, she said that she has been stressed a lot lately and wants to have some time alone and that ‘I wasn’t helping’.”

Breathe, Ella. “Well, sometimes your social reserves are just empty.” 

He still looked at her expectantly.

“Sometimes people need time alone to recharge,” she continued. “I think the entire situation with Dan is stressing her out.”

“So I should give her space?”

“Yeah,” she exhaled. “Yeah I think that would be best.”

Michael looked… apprehensive? Disappointed? At that.

Oh she was gonna regret this, but, “what is it?”

“I find myself… not wanting to do that.”

Shit. “You don’t want to leave her alone?”

“No, I… I certainly understand why she would want to be alone, but for some reason I don’t want to be.”

Oh. That was something she could relate to. “Oh! That’s completely normal, -”

He shook his head. “You need to understand, for the longest time all I wanted was to be left in peace. Now that I’m here and have that option I suddenly find myself not wanting this anymore.”

She smiled. “Being with people you’re comfortable being around is preferable to being completely alone most of the time. At the same time being alone is a nicer experience than being around people that constantly drag you down.”

There was a pause where Mike seemed to think that over. “So you think I- you think the company I kept before was not suitable for my needs?”

“Suuure, that’s one way of putting it. I doubt the demons were good to be around,” she added. “Chloe still needs her alone time though.”

He nodded. “Demons are vicious creatures ruled by their base instincts. They are beings of slaughter that do not care for the other.”

She frowned. “Well, I can’t speak for their whole, but Maze is, like, the best. If I can count anyone to have my back, it’s her, so. I respect one demon.”

He stared into the distance. “She is rather special, isn’t she.”

Ella grinned at him. “Yeah, she really is.”

She was probably gonna regret this, but fuck it. “You wanna come to my place sometime? Just because Chloe isn’t available doesn’t mean you have to spend your time alone.”

He looked at her surprised. “I… think I would like that, yes.”

* * *

And that's how she came to have a six foot tall Archangel in her two room apartment on a Saturday afternoon. It was big enough for her, but having guests over was always a bit of a challenge.

Coming in you had the kitchen to the left, which also held a small table with two chairs. It was divided from the living space by a countertop. In the living space was the couch, TV screen and a bookshelf filled with books, games and random assortments of merchandise. Opposite the apartment entrance was the door to her bedroom, which only contained her bed on the right, wardrobe on the far end and a door to the left that led to her small bathroom.

The two sat on the couch awkwardly.

“Sooo,” Ella drawled. “What do you wanna do?”

Michael frowned and stared at her leg. She noticed she was bouncing it and forced herself to stop.

He blinked up at her. “I don’t know. What do you usually do when alone?”

“Uh, usually I just watch my TV shows. Or, well, play video games with my other friends.”

That seemed to intrigue him. “What kind of games?”

“All kinds, really. Most multiplayer games are some kind of competition though. Fighting or racing games, you know, that kind of thing.”

He still looked interested, so she went on, encouraged.

“Now, what I have here that we can do in local multiplayer is…”

In the end they picked Super Smash Bros. 

After explaining to him how a controller works, she left him to sift through the character menu. The actual controls were better explained in-game anyway. In the end he picked Meta Knight while she went for Toon Link.

“Okay,” she started, “you move around with the left stick. The A-button is for your standard attacks, the B-button for your special attacks. Depending on which way you’re holding your left stick, you perform different kinds of moves.”

She demonstrated what she was saying on-screen.

“The goal of the game is to kick the other character off the stage. See the percentage number next to your character icon at the bottom? The higher the number, the easier it is for the other person to kick you off the stage. If you fly off the stage and don’t k.o. immediately, you can use your up-B move to get back onto the stage. If you tilt your right stick in a direction, you do a so-called smash move. Those moves are especially good for kicking others off the stage, and the longer you hold the stick to charge them, the stronger they get. You with me so far?”

“I think so, yes.”

She looked over at him. He seemed pretty fascinated.

“Okay, one last thing. You got your shoulder buttons on the back of the controller. The l and r buttons, those are the smaller ones, are for blocking. The bigger ones, ZL and ZR, are for grabbing. It’s the only move that can disrupt another person’s blocking. With most characters you have to really get up close to use it though. I’ve set the rules for a three stock match, which means that whoever gets to k.o. the other three times first wins. But how about we do learning by doing? Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you,” she winked.

“I accept your challenge, human,” he grinned back.

The start was a bit rocky. She gave him time to familiarize himself with the moves he had at his disposal, putting in some more information here and there.

“None of these moves are actual sword-fighting techniques,” he noted.

“Well yeah,” Ella answered. “It’s a game, it doesn’t have to be realistic.”

He looked over to her questioningly and wow, how was even that a topic he had issues with?

“It’s called suspension of disbelief. Basically, something doesn’t need to work irl to make sense in a fictional context. You don’t examine the logic behind something too closely in order to be able to enjoy it. Most of the time it leads to better storytelling. Also it lets me do _this_ ,” she exclaimed and threw him out of bounds with a well-timed slash of her sword.

“Alright, I see your point,” he smiled amused.

And now she had a topic to talk about.

“Almost all stories are either idealized or flat out fictional. It makes for more compelling storytelling and helps bring the intended message across more clearly. The ones that aren’t, are what ends up in history books. Real life is much messier than any story could ever portray. There is no clear black and white, good vs. evil, everything comes in a million shades of gray and I think that’s very sexy of us.” She grinned at her words.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is that stories get simplified to make a point. And because good storytelling is pretty damn hard, at some point you’d lose the overview of what the heck is going on. But! And this is the part most people like to forget, if one ever gets presented such a clear-cut story in real life, better do some digging of your own to figure out what actually is going on. In the fewest cases it’s as simple as the initial text wants you to believe.” She nudged him. “Just like you and what gets written about you, eh?”

Before he could react, Ella k.o.'d him the third time. "Booyah!" she exclaimed.

"Well played," Mike commented.

"Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it in no time."

"I should hope so. Beaten by a human, oh the indignity," he lamented, amused.

Ella laughed and he grinned at her.

She started the next round. "You know a lot about swordsmanship then?"

Over the course of the day, he definitely learned to hold his own in the game. He tried a bunch of different characters, but always gravitated to the sword-fighters.

It also surprised Ella how good of a strategist he was, and made a note to herself to introduce him to the Fire Emblem games.

"Thank you for this afternoon Ella, I had a great deal of fun,” he said as he was getting ready to go home.

"Yeah, so did I.” She hadn’t thought so at the beginning of the afternoon, so this had turned out to be a pleasant surprise. “We should do this again sometime."

"Absolutely,” he agreed. “And maybe I should acquire a Switch console myself."

"Oh, I have a ton of games to recommend if you do that. Don't hesitate to ask."

He nodded. "I will certainly keep that in mind.” He stepped outside. “I suppose I will see you at work then."

"Yeah, see you monday."

"Goodbye."

She watched him leave, thinking that maybe he wasn’t that bad after all. He really hadn’t been aside from the general threat to all of them and whatever had prompted him to go after Dan and yeah, maybe she still didn’t know enough to make a solid assessment.

There was still too much unknown.

* * *

In the end she decided she just couldn’t wait any longer to ask her questions about religion and belief and when would she ever get a better chance to ask them if not while in contact with the Sword of God himself? Maze had already filed some things, spilling her disdain for the system all over the place after a night of drinking so much she actually felt that effect. Linda told her she had not been fun to be around the next morning. Ella could imagine.

So a few days later she walked up to him. “Hey Luce, can I come by Lux later? I have some questions I really wanna get answers to.”

He looked up from where he was sitting at Chloe’s desk. “Of course. What about?”

“Oh, just you and your family and _what the hell is going on there_. But, you know, no pressure or anything if that’s too personal. Not like multiple religions are based on that or something,” she cackled nervously. Great, Ella, you sound like a deranged chicken.

“I- well, yes, sure, you can ask whatever you want. Why me though?”

“I mean, you’re an Archangel. Or were, at any rate, if _that_ whole thing is even correct. Also you’ve experienced both Heaven and Hell, so I thought you might have the most thorough view of things as opposed to for example Amenadiel or Maze.” Not that Lucifer would ever offer an objective view on either, but that was not the point right now.

He furrowed his brow. “Ah, I see. I guess that makes sense.”

“Great? Great. I’ll see you later then,” she stated and hastily retreated to her lab.

If she were completely honest with herself, she was terrified of getting actual answers. Decades of her believing couldn’t just be undone in a- well, about one and a half years now. Time always flew by when you weren’t paying attention.

Having answers just didn’t work with the entire faith thing. But the scientist in her was striving to know as much as she could. Faith was all well and good but if the actual reality of it impacted her daily life, then knowing more could only be a good thing. Not that she had much faith left by now. Also, who knew if what she believed in was actually the way of things. From what she knew so far, a lot of things lined up with Christian mythology, but just looking at what they did to Lucifer alone, she realized that there was a lot of stuff the church had gotten incredibly wrong and she didn’t doubt it was the same with the rest of the stories.

A few hours later she found herself exiting the elevator to the penthouse. Damn, she hadn’t been here in a long time. The last time had been when… Pierce. And those were some questions she was sure Mike couldn’t actually answer for her. Maybe she should ask Chloe about that...

But! Right now she was here to get some information out of the resident angel.

Apparently having heard her arrive, Michael came out from the entryway separating the rest of the penthouse from the living space.

“Hello,” he said and smiled.

“Hi,” she answered back.

He gestured to the couch and she went over with him. She sat down at an angle she could watch him at.

“You said you had questions,” he started.

“Yeah,” she exhaled.

“Then by all means, ask away.” He leaned back into the couch.

This was the last chance for her to back out. But she had already made up her mind.

“I’m going off Christian mythology here, so I’m sorry in advance if I get things wrong or say something wrong.”

He looked at her blankly. “Well that is what you are here for, yes? Answers?”

“I mean yeah, but still.” She combed through her hair.

There was exactly one question she wanted to ask, something she would never dare to ask the actual Lucifer and it also definitely wasn’t a conversation starter.

So she started with something else.

“I’m a scientist, I need the facts. Evolution, real or nah?”

“Yes, evolution is real. I am amazed by how much humans have found out about the history of the universe so far. What you have is accurate for the most parts. You just do not understand the machinations behind it. Father was very involved in the beginning until the system was set up to run on automation. He then only intervened in special cases, when He wanted for a specific outcome to happen.”

“Humans…”

“Are one of these cases, yes.”

“So Adam and Eve were real in a sense?”

He sighed. “They were the first non-celestials to be granted a soul. A trait that was then passed on to their children and their children’s children. It didn’t take long for all of humanity to acquire one.”

“Other animals don’t?”

“You willingly compare yourself to an animal?” he asked, taken aback.

Ella shrugged. “I mean yeah, that’s what we are.”

“ _Humans_ ,” he intoned, “have been chosen by Father to be something more. Unlike animals, who simply cease to exist after death, you have been granted eternity.”

“Is that really that great?”

He looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, we aren’t built for eternity. Every human is very aware that their life is finite, whether you believe in an afterlife or not doesn’t change that fact at first.” She grimaced. “I’ve got a friend who’s terrified of the thought of going on forever. They find peace in the idea of nothingness after death.”

“The soul is eternal, the mortal body is simply a vessel it inhabits before arriving in Heaven,” he answered, tense. “You have been granted an incredible gift, do not sully it with talk like that."

"Alright, alright, sorry.”

There was something else bothering her though. “But Heaven isn't the only option though. Do you still think eternity in Hell is such a gift?"

He gritted his teeth. "That is not for me to say."

She pointed at him. "You just sang Heaven's high praises. I think you absolutely do have an opinion." She continued on before he could say anything. "You just said eternal existence. How is that in any way proportionate to maybe a hundred years of living on earth? Luce, how is this little time in any way justifying eternal damnation? And what about you? At some point this universe is gonna die and what will you do then? Eternity in Hell, huh? Because you like it there so much." She breathed hard. "And honestly yeah, if you ask me, non-existence does sound like the better option here."

Michael looked stricken. "The system-"

"The system is bullshit. Maze already told me a bit about it. It's broken beyond repair, condemning innocents for the crime of _trying to live_ and I _know_ that you are one of them."

"How dare- "

"No. I know it and I know you know it, so why are you still defending it? You don’t deserve to be there any more than all those people unjustly trapped there, so the only question I have left to ask is _what happened?_ Lucifer, why did you fall?"

Michael looked at her in a way that made her want to squirm in her seat, or better yet, maybe just leave here real quick. She feared she’d gone too far this time. Angering an Archangel had not been on her agenda for today, maybe-

But Mike took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "You want to know what happened? Very well." It sounded like a challenge.

He stared into the near distance. "We were something resembling happy once. That was a long time ago. My family had never been particularly close. Family itself was a word we might have used right at the beginning, but it didn’t stick long. Father had His projects and we were there to help those along. It’s what we were made for. But my siblings and I had each other, my brother and I were particularly close, and it was enough.”

He clenched his jaw. “Until one day it wasn’t and h- and I made enough of an annoyance of myself to be thrown out, leaving him entirely alone. Heaven was never the same after that. No one trusts anyone anymore. ...At- at least that’s what Amenadiel told me.”

Aside from Heaven’s apparent disarray, she’d put most of that together already. “Yes but why?”

Michael looked at her strangely.

“Why did you go against God enough for Him to throw you out? What did you do?”

Mike grit his teeth. “Does it matter?”

She nodded. “I really think it does.” Though she got the impression she wasn’t getting any answers on that front today.

Suffice to say she was surprised when he did continue after all. “When Father first announced the humans would be granted souls, we all assumed they also would be placed under His unquestioning rule. We did not know how, exactly, they would be able to serve Him in any meaningful way, but then we hadn’t been paying too much attention to their development in the first place. It was not our place to pry. When this assumption turned out not to be the case and the humans, well, the two with souls at that point, were free to do as they wished, he got- I got angry. I demanded for the same. I was denied. I asked my siblings to join me in my request, but they refused. My brother begged me to stop, but I didn’t. In the end he had been charged with binding me. The Fall came soon after.”

There was a heavy pause. “I didn’t want to fight him. But there was no choice. Father knew that between all our siblings, he was the closest to me. I had to fight him and then he fell and left me all alone.”

Oh yeah, she was definitely confusing him at this point. Mike had trouble keeping track of who he was right now. Understandable, when it came to such a personal topic. She decided to try something.

“That must have been horrible, trying to stand up for your siblings’ freedom only to have to fight the person closest to you and then being completely cut off from everyone else in Hell for such a long time.”

“That…” He blinked. Shook his head. “It was my decision to go through with it. I could have stopped at any point before I ended up going too far.”

And there was a good question. “Did you know when that point was?”

Ella watched him, brow furrowed, going through his memories. “I don’t- I don’t know. When Michael was sent after me it was already too late.”

“Why did He send him and not any of your other siblings?” There was a suspicion she desperately wanted to not get confirmed.

He frowned. “He and I did everything together. We were equals in every way and always evenly matched. There was no telling which of us would come out on top in the end. We didn’t want to fight, but orders were orders and…”

Michael grew still. “The only reason I came out on top that day was because he _didn’t_ want to fight me. And Father knew that. He _knew_ how much this would hurt me but it was me who had to fight him anyway because I was the only one he would hold back with enough to guarantee a victory.”

And that had been exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear. Shit, no wonder no one in that family trusts anyone anymore. It was a wonder Lucifer was as well-adjusted as he was.

Michael laughed hollowly. “A genius plan, really. There is no trust left in Heaven. All we have are reluctant alliances. Maybe this was part of the reason why.”

Having her suspicions basically confirmed by one of the three beings that actually could? Not good for her mental health. And Mike had of course followed orders, reluctantly maybe, but it was all they were ever meant to do, so how could he not? How in all of existence had Lucifer managed to do that on his own?

“I’m so glad you’re not in Hell anymore,” she said. Empty words, wrong person. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t coming back.

Michael flinched, making her flinch in return. Apparently he’d forgotten she was still there for a hot minute.

“I disobeyed. It was justified.”

That didn’t mean she couldn’t still do something. “The sentence was disproportionate. It still is. There is no reason why-”

“An example had to be set, so no one else would try.” He shook his head. “Not that it worked in the end, only took about a hundred thousand years for someone else to have a go at it,” he huffed humorlessly.

Ella wondered who he was talking about, Amenadiel or himself?

He stared at the floor. “Nevertheless, in the end He is judge over all and everyone gets exactly what they deserve.”

If he was so sure that he was going to get punished for this, why did he still come here?

She leaned onto her arm. “And that is where I don’t agree with you dude.”

He turned back to her, tense. 

She continued. “We already talked about the system earlier. I still stand by that. All _you_ wanted was the freedom to make your own choices. That’s not deserving of Hell, it’s-”

He growled. “I’m not-”

"What, innocent? Yeah, maybe not, but you definitely aren't guilty enough to deserve Hell for all eternity. I think the entire Hell system has been a huge mistake and needs to be fixed immediately and I don’t understand why it isn’t!””

“God does not make _mistakes_.”

She took a breath and let it out again. “I used to believe in a benevolent God. One who would see how much you try, who would understand your struggles and look past your flaws to see who you truly are. Who would recognize your guilt and see that you want to do better, who, yes, would give people exactly what they deserve.

“I was friends with someone who, after recognizing her wrongdoings, was trying to do better. And then she was killed before she had the chance to. Back then I took issue with the fact that even though she was trying so hard it didn’t matter in the end. She still died. It’s what made the first crack in my belief. Now that I have more context it still didn’t matter, but not because she didn’t get the chance to do better, but that the only reason she went to hell is because she felt guilty about her choices to begin with. There is no justice in that.

“There is no benevolent God because people feel guilty about so many things they have no control over. They feel guilty about things they did long ago and have spent so much time trying to make up for. They feel guilty and the reason they do so is because they recognize they made a mistake. And instead of being forgiven for having any flaws at all, they get thrown into hell, one after the other, to rot there for all eternity. And I am almost completely sure that the same will happen to me. Hell holds the innocent and Heaven is inhabited by sinners with no remorse. So. Tell me, how can you say God is just when the _entire system_ is wrong?”

He shook his head. When he answered, his voice was icy. “I think you should go now.”

Yeah. That was probably a good idea. “Okay,” she said, swallowed. “Yeah, I’m gonna do that.”

At the elevator she turned around awkwardly. “Guess I’ll see you at work then?”

But Michael wasn’t paying any attention to her anymore.

* * *

Things were mostly uneventful after that. Michael apologized for throwing her out a few days later, presenting her with the same package of vending machine sandwiches she had bought him before. It was oddly sweet and she almost started laughing. She could see he was trying though.

She hung out with him a few times after that, more often than not via online multiplayer.

From what she heard, Trixie had him wrapped around her little finger. Truly, no being of otherworldly origin could resist her. Everything was settling down and there was nothing she would consider to be any kind of incident, supernatural or not.

It’s why it surprised her so much when one completely normal day, everything came crashing down.

She was sitting in her lab as usual, when she heard a commotion from outside. So far nothing uncommon, it happened from time to time, especially when a perp was involved. But then she saw who was causing it. Amenadiel was attacking Michael, who, from the way he was angled, had apparently been on the way to her. Chloe was out in the field doing interviews and hadn't come into the precinct at all so far, so he clearly couldn’t have been here for her.

The fight was vicious and Ella desperately wished she could do anything, but she also knew she was no match for two fighting angels.

Then, Michael got Amenadiel in a headlock, apparently said something to him and the fight ended as abruptly as it had started. All the fight drained from Amenadiel and as soon as Michael released him, he stalked away.

She rushed over to Mike. “Holy shit, are you okay? What was that all about?”

Michael gave her an icy stare, brushing himself off. Suddenly Ella felt very afraid. She thought she’d gotten over the penthouse incident, but there was something about how he looked at her that didn’t leave much room for rational thought.

“I am ending our friendship. I do not wish to be acquainted with you any longer. For your sake I advise you, do not try to contact me any further.” Then he began to walk away.

What the fuck? Scared or not, she had made a promise to herself once. “Hey!” Ella called after him, “you don’t get to drop that on me and then just walk away. You at least owe me a reason!”

Ella dreaded to hear what that would even be, but it was her last card to play. She’d seen too many people just walk away from her. And she was not letting anyone else go without a fight.

He turned around and fixated her with his gaze. “Ella Lopez.” Oh. _Oh no_. “What do you fear?”

And all she had ever feared was vividly dragged to the surface of her mind. “To see the people I love walk out of my life. To be completely alone again.” She was shaking and she couldn’t stop. She had trouble breathing. Angry tears were forming in her eyes.

She managed to take a shuddering breath. “Congratulations,” she spat. “You made your fucking point.”

Not wanting to hear anything else from him, not sure if she would even be able to withstand anything else that could have happened there, she stormed back to her lab.

Why did things always have to go so, so wrong?

She was this close to going home, but then she’d be alone for the rest of the day and that was exactly what she didn’t need right now. So she holed up in her lab instead, stole a coke from the breakroom fridge and put on her comfort TV-show, not caring that it was absolutely against work protocol.

And she knew that it wasn't Lucifer that had just broken up her friendship, but she'd seen Michael as a friend as well by now and had hoped he’d at least feel a bit of fondness for her too. Well, she guessed that's what she got for trying to read people’s intentions again. She should really just stop with that. Turned out wrong more times than not anyway.

It's not like she wasn’t used to losing friends either. Maybe she should talk to Linda about it, see if her psychology friend had any insight into-

Her spider-sense tingled and she turned to look out into the bullpen, only to see a familiar face staring at her. Black three-piece suit and, unusual for him, a slightly ruffled look, he was walking towards her with an expression of almost pained disbelief.

She fumbled for the mouse and put her show on pause, removing her earbuds, not taking her eyes off him for a moment. And oh, she was beyond hoping by now, but when he opened the door to her lab, she couldn’t help but ask,

"Lucifer?"

"Miss Lopez," he breathed and if that wasn’t the absolution she had been waiting for. She was out of her chair faster than he could blink and clung to him with all her might. She didn’t miss the way he flinched at her contact.

"Holy shit buddy, I missed you so much," she said into his chest, tears welling up all over again.

He tentatively wrapped his arms around her. "You're not angry at me?"

She laughed wetly. "Oh I was big mad when you left without saying anything, but I get why you did it now. Just, never put me through that again, okay?"

Oh yeah, she was straight up crying now.

"I don't understand," he said. "My brother-"

She shook her head at that and sniffed. "Don't worry about that, we all know about Mike."

She felt the tension leave his body, felt him hold her tighter. It was exactly what she needed right now. "How? Amenadiel didn't know and we're impossible to tell apart."

She shook her head. "Let's just say he isn't as good at impersonating you as he thinks he is. And even if you were, like, the original twins, time changes people. I imagine Hell changes people just as much."

He finally pulled back at that. She kept holding on. "What?"

She looked up at him and realized _he didn’t know_.

"Lucifer, I Know."

His breath hitched. "He showed you?"

She snorted and leaned back against him. "No, he just assumed I knew already. That wasn't that much different from you. No, it was Charlie actually. Babysitting a half-celestial is not as easy as it might sound."

He made an encouraging sound.

"Apparently he inherited Amenadiel’s time-stopping abilities," she elaborated.

"Ah, good for him,” he commented. “So, no wings yet?"

"No, no wings. At least as far as I know."

He pulled back completely then and she wiped at her face. 

“Sorry about getting your suit all wet,” she smiled and promptly started crying again.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said and grabbed her box of kleenex. “Have a tissue.” She took one but couldn’t do much more than hold it in her hands, almost ripping it on two.

He sighed and gathered her back into his arms. “Whatever is the matter?” 

“I just- I just really missed you.” 

“As did I,” he said quietly and rubbed her back. It didn't take her long to calm down after that. How did he always do that? 

She finally managed to use the kleenex he’d offered her. He cringed. She laughed and patted his chest.

He drew back again. "I really shouldn't leave Mikey alone for long though. Now, where is the Detective?"

"She’s been out in the field the entire day. I could call her? I'm gonna call her." She pulled up Chloe’s contact info and called her. She picked up immediately.

"Decker."

She grinned at Lucifer. "Hey Chlo, where are you right now?"

"On my way to the precinct, why?"

"Just get here as fast as you can, okay? Nothing bad, I promise, but you'll really wanna see this."

There was a pause. "I'll be there in about 15 minutes."

"Great! See you then,” she said and hung up.

Lucifer looked at her anxiously. “How- how is she?”

Ella thought for a moment. “Considering everything, I think she’s doing pretty alright.”

“Everything?”

“A lot has happened while you were gone, you know?” She patted his arm and sat back down in her chair. "I got one question though. Like, not to look a gift horse in the mouth and all, but why are you back now?"

He hummed and moved over to lean against the table next to her. "Apparently my brother broke up with the Detective this morning. She called Doctor Linda to complain, which is how Amenadiel found out about it and he decided to yell at me via prayer. Cue both of us being very confused and me coming back to put a stop to this. Which, apparently, wasn't even necessary."

She leaned against him again. "Nope, we got it handled." Mostly. She tensed up. “Where’s Mike now?” she asked, not sure what answer she’d like to get. On the one hand he had hurt her incredibly, but on the other hand emotions were hard to turn off and she still cared for him.

Lucifer apparently picked up on her distress. “What did he do to you?” he growled. Like, actually growled.

Ella stared at him for a second before consciously pulling herself together. “Oh, he came by here earlier, broke up our friendship and then dragged my biggest fear out of me. No biggie,” she said as casually as she could.

“Oh, I’m gonna make him pay for that,” he promised and yeah, she had definitely missed Lucifer’s protective streak. Just like everything else about him.

She smiled at him. “I really missed you, you know?”

“So you keep saying.” He looked at her sadly. She dared not to ask in fear of what the answer might be. Instead she changed the topic again.

“So, where is he?”

He sighed. “I went to the penthouse first to make myself presentable to human eyes. Hell really doesn’t do you any favours in regards to looks and it was not my intention to send everyone I met running for the hills at first glance, you know?” He smirked down at her. “I was just done getting ready when he arrived. We had words and then we almost had what I’m reasonably sure was his second fight for that day when he apparently had a panic attack. I called Doctor Linda for him and left to go looking for the Detective. That was maybe fifteen minutes ago. I assume he’s still there.”

“Aw, I didn’t know you cared,” she teased.

“He’s still my brother, you know? We were close, once.”

“Yeah, I get that. My family doesn’t even come close to yours in terms of issues, but siblings will always be a special case.”

He hummed. “How’s Azrael by the way?”

“Who?”

But she didn’t get an answer because that’s when Chloe was striding into the precinct. Damn that was fast. Barely ten minutes had passed. She looked towards Ella’s lab and spotted Lucifer immediately. She stopped dead in her tracks.

She glanced over at Lucifer. He was equally frozen. She elbowed him.

“What are you doing? Go to her!”

Before he managed to move she was already on her way over.

“You!” she exclaimed.

“Detective?” he managed to get out.

Her eyes widened and she looked at Ella. She nodded enthusiastically.

Her hug was an exact repeat performance of the one Ella gave him, down to his flinching. 

They were standing there like that for a few minutes and Ella went to clean up her workspace in the meantime. 

“Are you going to release me again, love?” Lucifer asked at some point.

Chloe laughed weakly. “If you think I’m ever letting you go again you got another thing coming.”

She couldn’t see it, but he smiled down sadly at her. “It’s gonna be a bit hard for you to do your job then, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I think you’re underestimating my ability to improvise when it comes to this.”

His hand went to her hair. “Hmmm, well it’s gonna be a bit hard for me to do my job then.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Chloe,” he sighed.

She stiffened. “Can… can you just call me Detective for now?”

“Of course darling, whatever you desire.”

After a minute more he pulled back. “I really should be getting back to the penthouse, I don’t want him skipping town before I can set some things right.”

“Who?” Chloe frowned.

“Michael,” Ella answered helpfully. “We’re gonna see you again after, right? You’re not just gonna disappear on us again?”

“You have my word I will not leave without telling you beforehand. Not willingly at least.”

Ella feared that this was the best they were going to get and saw the same fear reflected in Chloe’s eyes. She did realize there was nothing more they could do at this point though, so she nodded.

Then, from one moment to the next and with the sound of displaced air he was gone.

Chloe flinched.

“Oh holy shit,” she said, wide-eyed.

That got a weak laugh from the detective. “Yeah pretty much.”

Ella turned to her friend. “We’re not just gonna leave him to deal with Mike alone, are we?”

Chloe’s gaze shifted to the side before returning to her. “No, absolutely not. I’m not sure I should go though.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“I make him vulnerable. I’m the reason he can get hurt by human means, which would give Michael a potential advantage.”

“Oh damn.” She thought for a moment. “Then how about I go ahead and tell you once the coast is clear? And bring Trixie. If one person on this planet can calm down two Archangels, it’s her.”

Chloe shook her head. “Do you really think that’s safe?”

“Yeah,” she grinned. “I really do.”

* * *

In the end Chloe left before the forensic managed to get the rest of the day off. As soon as she did though, she made her way to Lux as fast as she could. Through some miracle, traffic was actually being considerate today and it took her much less time to get there than usual.

When she exited the elevator, Lucifer was lounging at the bar while Mike and Linda were talking on the couch.

The Devil regarded her, clearly surprised. “Miss Lopez, what are you doing here?”

Linda waved at her. Michael looked ashamed? She wondered what was going on there. She smiled back at them.

“You really think we’d just leave you to deal with Mike alone? We’re the support squad. Well, currently I’m the support squad. Physical, emotional, whatever you need.”

The elevator opened again before he could answer.

“Lucifer!!!” Trixie cried and the, Ella assumed, fourth person today flung herself at the Devil in order to hug him to death. She noticed that this time he didn’t flinch nearly as badly anymore.

“Hello child,” he smiled.

“You missed my twelfth birthday,” she complained.

“Oh I did, didn’t I? Allow me to make it up to you at some point. Not now however, my brother-”

The elevator opened again and Chloe stepped out.

“Trixie you know why you shouldn’t just run off.”

“Sorry mom, I just really wanted to see Lucifer.”

“I get that monkey, but I still worry, you know?” She turned to Lucifer. “Everything okay here?”

“Yes Detective, everything is fine.”

That’s when Michael decided to speak up. “I feel like I must apologize. I took Lucifer’s place in a misguided attempt to get revenge for the loss I experienced when he fell. But being here made me realize that he experienced far greater injustice than I ever did and that by taking his place I was only hurting him further.” He grimaced. “In an attempt to remove myself from the equation and knowing that my brother was not coming back, I thought the best solution was to give you all a clean cut from our presence. I understand now how that was a rather poorly thought out plan. I truly am sorry for all the hurt I caused.”

Trixie, who was currently climbing onto Lucifer’s lap answered. “Duh, but we knew about you not being Lucifer for a while now. The-”

Michael jerked back. “You did?”

“Uh, yeah, you’re not as good at pretending to be him as you thought you were.”

That seemed to really throw him for a loop. “I suspected Linda knew, poking around one's brain is a lot more personal than I had expected, which was confirmed when she addressed me as Michael on the phone earlier. But- if you knew, why did you still spend time with me?”

“Because you looked like you needed a friend, dummy,” Trixie explained from her place, now settled on Lucifer’s lap, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Ella could only nod to that. Chloe shrugged.

“To be completely honest,” Linda started, “you threatened my child and I wasn’t just going to sit by and do nothing. And this is the one way I could actively do something.”

He bowed his head in acquiescence. “Charlie will see no harm from me. I may not fully understand children, but I do understand the importance of family now. And he is part of mine.”

“Thank you,” she answered.

“What do you plan to do now?” Ella asked. Pretending to be Lucifer wasn’t an option anymore after all.

“Honestly I don’t know. I will not stay here, for I have burdened you with my presence for long enough. I will have to think about it.”

Trixie frowned. “You could stay. You have friends here now and I would miss you.”

He looked at her absolutely baffled. “You- you still consider me your friend? After the way I treated you and those you consider family?”

Trixie nodded. “Well yeah. You apologized and I know you actually meant it. So. I accept your apology and would like it if we could stay friends.”

He frowned. “I have to say, friendships are confusing me a lot. Forgiveness and acceptance are not something you see in Heaven.”

“Nor in Hell,” Lucifer added.

To Ella it just sounded like the two opposites of abusive families. The ‘everything is perfect’ side in Heaven where the abuse was in the silence and fake smiles, and the screaming and physical abuse in Hell where the pretense had been given up a long time ago.

“We’ll help you get used to it,” she stated.

“That’s what you’ve been doing isn’t it? You and Linda. Explaining human customs to me.”

She shrugged. “I tried.”

Linda smiled wryly. “You’re a fast learner. Though sometimes the similarities between you and Lucifer are almost eerie.”

“You mean how they only hear what they want to hear?” Chloe grinned.

“I resent that!” Lucifer exclaimed.

“That’s part of it, yes.”

“I do believe Trixie was my first real friend though. It… disturbed me when she was upset,” Mike grimaced.

“Hold on, hold on,” Ella chimed in. “Is that why you got Dan fired?”

“What?” Lucifer asked.

“He deeply upset her,” Michael admitted. “And not for the first time from what I gathered. I thought it reasonable to have him experience some consequences.”

“He moved back to his parents,” Chloe added. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

Ella didn’t miss how the girl clung tighter to Lucifer at that.

Michael turned to her after that. “Ella I must apologize for using my powers on you earlier. It was not something you should have had to experience.”

She smiled at him, brittle as it was. “I get it. I’m not forgiving you yet, but I’m not ruling it out entirely either.”

Then the elevator opened again and out came Maze, with Amenadiel and Charlie in tow.

Amenadiel was clearly surprised by the group already present. Or maybe it was the lack of fighting going on.

Maze strode right over to Lucifer. “Can you maybe _stop_ leaving for hell _without telling me?_ ”

Ella was sure the only reason she was not currently throwing him to the floor was Trixie still sitting on him.

The girl must have picked up on it too because she made to get down before Lucifer held her in position.

Maze sighed. “It’s alright kiddo, you can keep sitting on him. That will at least stop him from leaving for now.” Then she sat down next to Chloe and poured herself a generous amount of alcohol.

Tension resolved, Lucifer looked over to Amenadiel and Charlie, who was standing around rather awkwardly, unsure of what to do with himself.

“He’s grown so much already,” Lucifer marveled.

Amenadiel smiled at his brother. “He has, hasn’t he? He should start walking any day now. Do you want to hold him for a bit?”

His eyes widened. “I’m not sure if-”

Trixie climbed down from his lap. “Don’t worry, you’ll do great,” she said, patting him on the leg.

The group shared an amused expression.

Holding his nephew in his arms, Ella noticed a shift in his expression. He looked back up with new determination.

“Thank you,” he said, “but you should probably take him back now.”

“No no,” Amenadiel protested, “keep him for a bit longer. I insist.”

Using children to keep Lucifer from leaving again. Truly the most devilish of plans. Ella grinned. As long as it worked, she figured.

He sighed, resigned to his fate for now. “Don’t know why I’m even doing this, if your father insists on torturing me so,” he said to the infant. Charlie looked back unfazed. It really was incredibly adorable.

“Come on,” Chloe smiled, “Let’s go sit down somewhere else.”

They made their way over to the couch when Amenadiel spoke up again. “Hold on, what about Michael?” His gaze drifting from one twin to the other.

“That’s all been resolved already. Do keep up brother,” Lucifer answered. Mike waved at him sheepishly.

“We’re good,” Linda confirmed.

“Sure, let’s not tell me anything, why not,” Amenadiel grumbled.

Not soon after, Michael wandered off to where she assumed the kitchen was. Amenadiel followed close behind.

Ella looked at her phone. Damn, it really was already almost time for dinner.

She enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, sitting next to Maze, with Chloe, Linda and Lucifer talking in the background, until the two brothers came back. Michael was carrying a plate of sandwiches, and Amenadiel had apparently gone and gotten something for Charlie, judging from the mush in the bowl.

“Great, food,” Maze exclaimed, snagging a sandwich from the plate and sitting back down at the bar.

Ella made her way over to the couch to join the others.

“Here, let me take him,” Amenadiel said and picked up Charlie.

Trixie immediately settled in next to Lucifer, leaning on him. Ella snickered. Lucifer sighed. 

“Child, I won’t disappear from one moment to the next, you don’t have to hold me.”

“Nuh-uh, not risking that.”

He sighed again and patted her head. “I missed you too, urchin.”

Michael pressed a sandwich in his hand. “Here, have an actual sandwich. I cannot believe you like those sandwiches they have in the precinct.”

And now the confusion was complete. “No I don’t? Whatever gave you that idea?”

She couldn’t help herself anymore and burst out laughing. Just a full-on cackle.

“Miss Lopez, what-?”

She breathed hard, trying to stop herself from giggling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that was one of the tests I did to see if he was you or not.”

“Ah I see. Very clever, I have to say,” he admitted, clearly amused.

After dinner Lucifer was getting restless again.

“Child, will you please unhand me now?”

Linda and Michael had moved back to the bar, sitting next to Maze.

“Come on Trix, give him some space,” Chloe said.

Amenadiel walked over to him and sat down on his other side. “Thank you,” he said with too many emotions to name. “For protecting him.”

Lucifer looked down at the sleeping child in his brother’s arms. A litany of emotions was crossing his face. In the end it settled on loss. And she understood only too well. It made her tear up. Again.

She went over to him, slower this time and drew him into her third hug for the day. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I get it. I understand.”

He clung to her now too. “I can’t stay,” he said hoarsely.

“I understand. Really.” She sniffed noisily. “You’ll always have a place here though.”

“Thank you,” he rasped.

“How long can you stay?” Chloe whispered, roughly.

“As long as I needed to get this resolved. The sooner I get back the better though.”

“Will you stay the night at least?”

He sighed, clearly conflicted.

“Please?” Trixie piped up.

And there was no denying her. There never had been.

“Very well. I will have to leave in the morning though.”

It was the best they could do and it broke Ella’s heart.

At some point the entire thing turned into an impromptu slumber party. The family of four had retreated to one of the guest rooms a while back. Chloe had gotten so tired at one point, she and Trix took over the master bed.

Ella was dozing on the couch, half-asleep, listening to Michael and Lucifer talk quietly. They had millennia to catch up on and only so little time to do so.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said again. 

“What for this time?” Lucifer asked, half-amused.

“For blaming you for what happened, like everyone did for such a long time. You were gone and I was hurting but that doesn’t excuse my behaviour.”

“I understand. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, even from my own family.”

“That doesn’t make it any better. I didn’t understand your side back then. I should have tried harder to.”

“Mike, you literally had a panic attack about having to fight me again, I can see how much this hurt you. How much I hurt you. I’d be willing to call us even if you are.”

“No.” And Ella was really trying not to listen too actively, but it was really hard not to. “I hurt you much more gravely than you ever did me. And I did not hurt only you, but the ones who consider you family now too.”

There was a pause.

“I thought about what you said, about if I wanted to take over your life so desperately I could take over ruling hell for a while. You have a family here and I have much to atone for. I believe this would be a start for me to make amends.”

Lucifer sucked in a sharp breath. “Why would you do that? You could just return home.”

“I have grown weary of Heaven, brother. Everything changed after you fell. There is no joy left to find for me there. It’s why I left for earth in the first place. Another change of scenery might do wonders for me. Maybe at some point I’ll finally be the older brother again,” he joked.

“Keep telling yourself that. There was barely an age difference between us to begin with, now at least there’s an actual age gap, _little_ brother.” He grew serious again. “Hell is not your responsibility. You don’t have to do this.”

“Why are you trying so hard to talk me out of this? I am offering freely to take your place for as long as you need me to. And maybe after that I might just have made a tiny step towards repairing the bond that once was between us.”

“Do you really think you can handle it?”

“You managed to, didn’t you?”

“And it chewed me up and spat me out unrecognizable from what I had been before. This will leave you changed and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone.”

“I don’t think it changed you as much as you think it did.” He sighed. “I know what I’m getting myself into. I will be fine.”

There was again that sound of displaced air.

“I see that I can’t stop you,” Lucifer said, resigned. “Just- be careful, will you?”

“Of course.”

And that sounded an awful lot like a goodbye.

“Wait!” Ella said and sat up. And oh shit those were wings. Actual wings. Huge and black and magnificent and- stop getting distracted Ella!

Both brothers were staring at her and in the dark of the penthouse it was giving her an uncanny valley feeling.

“Yeesh, can you please stop staring?”

“My apologies, Miss Lopez,” Lucifer said and relaxed back against the bar.

She looked back at Michael. “I am not letting you leave like this.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you weren’t just going to disappear on us again and now you’re doing just that. Just because you were pretending to be Lucifer back then doesn’t mean I won’t hold you to it. You are not leaving until everyone knows you’re leaving and had a chance to say goodbye. And honestly? That can wait until morning.”

“You care this much about me?”

“Well yeah, I told you we were friends, didn’t I? Even with you trying to make that very hard for us. Besides, Lucifer is family which means you’re family as well. Deal with it.”

Lucifer laughed at his baffled look. “That is our dear Miss Lopez for you.”

And suddenly the wings were gone again. “Alright I’m staying, but only because I know how angry you all get for leaving without notice. Really brother, you should be quite glad they let all their anger about your departure out on me before you came back. It was not pleasant to say the least.”

“I can deal with my own mistakes, you know? Have been doing so for eons.” He turned back towards Ella. “Just like Michael tried to do earlier, I thought it would be kinder to simply leave without a goodbye. I understand now that has not been the case and I apologize for any hurt I have caused.”

“Hrm,” Ella responded, already having laid back down again. 

“Maybe we should go talk somewhere else,” Michael said, amusement plain to hear.

“Agreed,” Lucifer answered.

* * *

The next morning she was woken up by an excited shriek.

“You’re really staying? Really, really?”

“Yes, really. Mikey and I came to an agreement. He’s taking over my place for now.”

Ella sat up and watched the exchange.

Trixie turned towards the other twin frowning. “Does that mean you’re leaving?”

Michael nodded. “Yes it does.”

“Didn’t know you had it in you,” Maze remarked, crunching on some cereal she had found somewhere apparently.

“Will you visit?” Trixie asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered and looked over to Lucifer. His twin shrugged.

“Perhaps, if an opportunity presents itself.”

“Come by our place too if you do,” Amenadiel added.

“I will.” He unfolded his wings.

Damn they looked even better in daylight.

He looked over at her.

“Do I have your permission to leave?” he smirked.

“Yep,” she answered, as serious as she could muster.

“Goodbye then,” he said. “It was a pleasure meeting you all.”

“Good luck,” Lucifer added and then Michael was gone.

There was an awkward silence after that.

“Damn, what a crazy few months,” she splurted.

“You said it, sis,” Maze agreed.

“Believe me, it’s always like this,” Linda said, burdened with the experience of the one human who’s known the longest.

“What are you gonna do now?” she asked Lucifer.

“You know, I’m not sure actually.” He looked over at Chloe.

“You could come back to work?”

He smiled. “I think I’d like that. As for the rest…”

Chloe took his hand. “Your brother just broke up with me. And I think- I think I need a break. Can we maybe only go the friendship track for now?”

“I can certainly do that,” he agreed. “Whatever you desire,” he added and smiled at her.

“As nice as this is, I still have work today,” Linda noted. “I’ll text you Michael’s schedule later, tell me if you want to keep it, otherwise we’ll set up a new one.”

Maze and Amenadiel with Charlie in arm followed after her. “It’s good to have you back,” the angel said.

Lucifer nodded.

When they were gone, Ella made her way to the exit too. “I gotta get to work too, but hey. See you there?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything my dear forensic scientist.”

“Great, see you later!”

Smiling like stupid, she made her way to her car. She congratulated herself for a job well-done. As a last executive decision, she sent off a single text.

Ella: _He’s back (devil emoji)_

Candy: _!!!_

And maybe, just maybe, by fixing other people’s problems she has started fixing her own.

**Author's Note:**

> At first I wanted to put Hanni & Nanni as the twin swap example, but then I realized that the craze with that franchise in the late 2000s was a mostly German phenomenon and that as a US kid Trixie would not have experienced that in any shape or form. Luckily there is more than one story with that exact same plot out there and next to The Parent Trap and St. Clare's, German book author Erich Kästner also tried himself at writing it in his book Lottie und Lisa.  
> Just a comment on 'but someone else already did it before me'. Do it anyway, all three of these made a ton of money.
> 
> Disclaimer that yes, I do realize Blyton’s stories are pretty damn racist. I’ve never read the originals, all my interactions with her texts were German translations of the Famous five books and the movie mentioned above. Obviously I didn't realize they were racist when I first read them when I was 8 and I can’t say how much of the racism was maybe toned down during translation, the last time I read them was years ago. However they were an important part of my childhood, especially George as a character being one of the many steps of me realizing I was enby. Will never forgive Disney for butchering her character like that.
> 
> Btw i love the gravity falls entry on the tvtropes page to twin swap.  
> In gravity falls, REDACTED  
> in the final episode, REDACTED  
> Very good content
> 
> I’ve got a Lucifer [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mXo8vMCAHuFMQnXTPXEc8?si=Sb3fqvctQnObNzgLsfUWzg) btw, not specific to this fic but in general, so check it out if that’s something you’re interested in
> 
> My tumblr is @feuerbluete, but it’s mostly a mess :D


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